


if Aphrodite gives a shit

by pissedofsandwich



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, soulmate AU with a twist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9670112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedofsandwich/pseuds/pissedofsandwich
Summary: A pairless human is about as rare as a unicorn, so of course Yuri is one. When his timer went off at Yakov's summer camp, his was the only one that went zero. Cursed, people call him. Fuck off, Yuri tells them.In contrast, Otabek still has years before he's due to meet his Soulmate.In which love is free will, and it doesn't take fancy timers for two people to realize they're Soulmates.Chapter 2: 2016, or: puberty hits, Yuri finds out about Otabek's secret hobby, injuries happen, the entire Altin family is otherworldly and fucking gorgeous, Yuri pulls a Victor and choreographs an entire routine for Otabek's birthday, and Yuri has to deal with the fact that things are ephemeral.





	1. 2015

**Author's Note:**

> some of you probably thought that this [fic sounds familiar](http://thepoetsarejust.tumblr.com/post/156324790105/if-aphrodite-gives-a-shit-and-we-created-you-in), and you're right! it's cross-posted on tumblr, in addition to being posted here about a month ago, before it got deleted because of [Reasons](http://thepoetsarejust.tumblr.com/post/156389574550/hi-everyone-if-you-know-me-youd-know-that-i) . so here i am, reposting it again, while chapter 2 is in progress.
> 
> i love soulmate aus, i really do, but i can't help but think it can kind of take the choice away from you. it's especially tricky with soulmate timer aus. how would a 12 yo feel if their timer says they would meet their soulmate in 60 years? what happens if you meet your soulmate when you're 15 and he's 35? what happens if, along the way, you fall in love with someone who's not your soulmate? while i believe love can be spontaneous (yuuri and victor), i want to show that love can be slow as well, instead of hitting you like a brick, creeps up on you slowly, but surely.
> 
> this is the result of that 3am thought.
> 
> as always, you can direct any questions or constructive criticisms to my [tumblr](http://thepoetsarejust.tumblr.com)! thanks for reading!

Yuuri and Victor is a tale of misunderstandings made worse by bad communication and scandalous shenanigans.

Yuri's certain this year's season would look so much different if Victor could just admit to Yuuri that, yes, both of their timers went off at the Banquet (it has a capital _B_ now, because no _one_ ever forgets the Banquet), that he wants to submit his useless self to domesticity for the rest of his life, and that he, as ridiculous as it sounds, has no desire to return to competitive skating, and the only reason why he did is because of Yuuri's dense, oblivious request.

Yuri can picture it so perfectly, it makes him want to barf: the two retiring together after Yuuri's decent silver, living in a luxurious penthouse because Victor is filthy, filthy rich, being embarrassing dog parents. They'd probably adopt ten more dogs—and kittens, too, for good measure, because they are that couple who walk into a pet shelter to get one and end up with twenty.

 _Disgustingly_ happy.

It offends Yuri. If they retire, then for the rest of Yuri's figure skating career, he will face an awfully predictable season. He hasn't even had the absolute pleasure to stand above Victor Nikiforov on the podium! It's entirely horrific for them to even consider retiring when Yuri isn't even done with this season. That's why he pushed himself to win gold at the Grand Prix, to remind Yuuri that he's still not half as good as he could be, the perfect opponent to fulfill Yuri's thirst for a real fight.

He didn't really count on Yuuri moving into Victor's ridiculously huge penthouse and becoming the Japanese in Team Russia, but whatever keeps the two on ice.

Besides, it's fun to watch Victor pine. Yuri delights in seeing five-time Grand Prix gold-medalist, two-time Olympian gold medalist, living legend Victor Nikiforov reduced to nothing but a pathetic bumbling fool at the face of something as idiotic as love.

The fun doesn't stay long, unfortunately. On a day such as this, however, Yuri desperately wishes that the couple could just sit down and talk about their stupid feelings. It makes him shudder just to think about it, but Yuri swears he will cut a bitch if he has to share a rink with Victor and Yuuri for one more day.

He's seriously considering moving rinks.

He knows how it sounds. Is Yuri Plisetsky, known for kicking people unceremoniously in the butt in greeting, yelling and insulting everything on Earth the whole time, considering to give up?

There's nothing more that Yuri Plisetsky loves more than a good fight, but even he knows how to pick his battles. Yuuri and Victor is a battle he can't win.

"But Yurio! Yuuri just moved in! You can't tell him to move back to Japan!"

"But Yurio! I need to practice and coach Yuuri at the same time! I can't be in two places at once!"

“But Yurio! Yuuri cooks the best katsudon in all of Russia! You love katsudon, don’t you?”

“But Yurio! We just ordered a new king-sized bed! It’d be shame if I’m the only one sleeping on it!”

“But Yurio! We just adopted a new dog!”

Victor has a lot of buts, but it's never this one:

"But Yurio! Yuuri and I are Soulmates!"

They are both so _dumb_.

Yuri is not even destined to have any Soulmates, yet he still understands the importance of communication.

Yuri has every right to complain, as he has previously attempted to take matters into his own hands. All of his efforts die in vain. Yuuri believes Yuri is just messing with him when Yuri tells him (which, fuck off, Yuri would never joke to anyone about Soulmates, even if he thinks Aphrodite is nothing but capitalist propaganda. He's a mean little shit, but he's not evil), Victor cries ("He told me he wanted to end things! After he proposed to me!"), and Yuri decides, right then and there, that he is done.

He delivers them a strongly worded ultimatum.

"LISTEN ASSHOLES. FIX THIS SOULMATE SHIT OR I WILL NEVER RETURN TO THIS RINK. RUSSIA WILL LOSE ITS BRIGHT FUTURE—BECAUSE FACE IT, VICTOR, YOU'RE SENILE—AND YURI'S ANGELS WILL ALL PERSONALLY END YOUR LIVES. YURI PLISETSKY OUT."

And then he boards a plane to Almaty.

-

 **[20:45]** me: _better wait up for me cos im coming over_

 **[20:57]** otabek: _Alright?_

-

"When you told me you're coming over, I didn't think you meant right now," Otabek says in lieu of greeting. He doesn't offer to bring Yuri's suitcase, which is nice. Yuri hates people thinking he's weak just because he's lithe and slender.

"I can't deal with them," Yuri whines. "They turned figure skating into a _one-year-long cockblocking_ , Otabek. I don't know anyone who does that. I can't concentrate. And now that Georgi's moved on and Mila’s found Sara, normal life is out of the question."

Otabek raises his eyebrows, seeming to communicate, aren't you the one who didn't want them to retire?  Otabek doesn't say that, which is a good move because Yuri would have punched him, best friends be damned, and instead asks if Yakov is on board with this.

"He better be," Yuri grumbles. "Listen, if it's what it takes to make the pig and the old man to communicate, I will fucking do it, because my mind is about to blow up with their sickening pining."

Otabek halts in his tracks, then, like he’s just realized something. Yuri looks back at him in question. Otabek gives him this look, like he's fond of Yuri, but doesn't make any further comment regarding his impulsive decision. “If that’s what you want,” he says, and somehow it sounds so cryptic, coming from Otabek.

-

Otabek’s apartment is roughly the size of grandpa’s house. It has two bedrooms, one bathroom, a small kitchen area and an even smaller living room with a flat TV. The balcony is bigger than the kitchen and living room combined, an old-school rocking chair placed in the corner, overlooking the busy streets of Almaty. Yuri peeks into the room that Otabek calls the guest bedroom.

“Why is your balcony bigger than my room?” Yuri asks.

“It’s not your room,” Otabek says patiently. “I like to work out outside. It’s refreshing.”

Yuri steps out into the balcony, hit immediately by a strange combination of cool breeze and carbon dioxide. “I think I like St. Petersburg better,” he decides. Otabek joins him in the balcony, looking amused.

“Then why’d you come to Almaty?”

Yuri sighs dramatically. “I told you, I need to escape Victor and Yuuri.”

“The Russian national championship is coming,” Otabek points out. “Are you sure you really should be here?”

“Ugh,” Yuri hates how Otabek is always right. “Fine. If in five days Yuuri and Victor haven’t made up their stupid minds, I’m coming back to St. Petersburg.” He braces both hands on the railings, looking out into the city. The sky is obscured by light pollution, rendering stars invisible. They don’t say anything for a long time, until Otabek nudges his shoulder.

“I didn’t realize we’re on that stage of friendship where you can just show up unannounced at my apartment,” Otabek remarks. "In another country."

“Alright, you’re one of the few friends that I don’t want to kill every hour, so you better feel damn special, asshole,” Yuri nudges back.

“You sure do set the bar really high,” Otabek replies dryly. “You can stay here and watch the sunset if you want, but frankly, if you want a better view, you should go to Medeu. I’m going to inform my coach about your arrival.”

“Nice,” Yuri says. After a beat, he adds, “Thanks.”

Otabek nods and leaves him. Yuri takes the opportunity to take numerous pictures of the view from Otabek’s apartment. Otabek, the old soul, for the love of him cannot figure out how to use his Instagram, and it turns out that the only picture he’s ever posted—the one where he’s in the airport—is taken, captioned, and posted by one of his three older sisters, Sabina. In turn, he teases Yuri about being the Z Generation, even though Otabek is barely three years older.

They’ve been talking non-stop since last year’s Grand Prix Final, and gone past the weird stage where they’re still trying to test the waters. Otabek, Yuri learns with horror, is the only person Yuri knows who texts with grade-A punctuation and grammar, on top of his inability to use emojis. Even Victor, who’s basically a mummy at this point, uses smiley faces on his texts. Katsudon uses those automated texts that show as cat faces or a human doing very Japanese things.

He’s about to post the fifth sunset picture he takes when Otabek trudges back to his side. “My coach said okay to coaching you temporarily,” Otabek says. “On the condition that you should let no one except for Yakov and your grandpa about your location. I don't want any Yuri's Angel infiltrating my apartment."

Yuri’s thumb freezes just over the post button. “Ugh, fine,” he relents, defeated. He closes the app. He can survive without posting anything on Instagram. Cavemen have tried, he, a more advanced human being, should be stellar at it.

Otabek doesn’t look like he’s sympathizing with Yuri even a little bit. Yuri begins to wonder if this friendship is worth it. “Let’s go inside,” Otabek says, touching the edge of the skin where Yuri’s skin meets his palm, grazing the end of his dead timer just so. Otabek’s own timer, very much still working, catches the sunset’s weak light and for some reason, it reminds Yuri of the rings Victor and Yuuri wear. A sealed fate. “Help me make dinner.”

Yuri pointedly does not think of Soulmates for the rest of his stay in Almaty.

-

Miraculously, Yuuri and Victor get their shit together by the fifth day. Aphrodite herself must be shitting. Mila livestreams the whole thing for the international skating community. Apparently, instead of sitting Yuuri down in their big-ass apartment with some hot tea and sappy music playing in the background, Victor yells it instead at Yuuri after practice, unprompted and out of nowhere, as if he takes one look at Yuuri and decides that he cannot contain all the feelings inside him any longer.

It’s like Victor wants everyone to know.

Now that Yuri thinks about it, Victor most definitely does, has wanted to since Beijing. It is not quite taboo in most Western countries to have a relationship with someone who is not your intended, but Yuri supposes the culture must differ in Asia. Russia isn't really big on Aphrodite, though the laws are pretty strict about these damn timers. If Victor’s not absolutely sure about Yuuri, he wouldn’t have acted so careless with his affection. Yuuri is too wrapped own in his own insecurity to notice, and Victor is not helping by any inch by staying silent and doing what Yuuri thinks he wants to do, without asking him what he wants even once.

“YUURI, I AM YOUR SOULMATE,” Victor shouts in the livestream. Yuri winces and immediately turns down the volume. He should’ve known there would be loud declarations of love.

It’s already lunch time in Almaty, and Otabek, startled by the yell, drops his spatula and spills some of the curry he’s making. The mixture is sizzling, and Yuri hears Otabek hiss in pain, but it looks like nothing serious as the Kazakh simply wipes it off with a clean napkin and moves to sit next to Yuri, who is furiously watching Victor’s latest idiosyncrasy.

“What is happening?” Otabek asks.

“Watch my lunch,” Yuri says, “I don’t want you to burn the curry.”

“Is that Victor and Katsuki?” Otabek raises his eyebrows.

Yuri cranks up the volume in response. “—IN LOVE WITH YOU SINCE THE NIGHT OF THE BANQUET,” Victor continues to yell. “I KNOW YOU DON’T REMEMBER BUT I DO. AND I LOVE YOU, YUURI KATSUKI, AND I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO SKATING UNLESS IT’S WHAT YOU WANT.” Victor’s next words are, thankfully, not yelled, but Yuri can’t catch it despite the silence that has dawned on the rink.

“He’s saying, ‘honestly, I’d much rather skip the gold part and marry you,’” Mila whispers behind the screen, barely-contained excitement evident in her voice.

Mila is not standing too far away from where the story develops, so Yuri can make out Yuuri’s reactions, pixellated as they are. Yuuri is frozen, still as a marble statue, no doubt having trouble processing all of this. He hears sobs that are far too distant to be Yuuri’s; it must only belong to one and only Georgi Popovich, in love with love.

After a while, Yuuri skates to Victor and pulls him roughly into his embrace, and kisses the live out of Victor. Mila’s whoops are the most audible among the cheers that fill the ice rink. Georgi is straight up wailing. The screen goes blank for a few seconds, before it switches to front camera, showing Mila’s red face. “Yuri Plisetsky, if you’re watching this, please come back immediately. The nationals are in less than a month!”

Yuri cuts off the livestream after that, and immediately goes to Twitter, vexed to find that, once again, #Victuuri is trending. “Well, I guess now I have no reason to stay here,” Yuri scowls. “By Aphrodite’s name, they are going to be more sickening than they already are. I take it back. I want to stay here until they stop being gross.”

Otabek makes a face. “Well, I suppose that’s never going to happen.”

“Now I regret everything,” Yuri groans.

Otabek gets back to his curry. The spicy smell fills the apartment, prompting Yuri’s stomach to growl. “Why do you call them gross and sickening, anyway?”

“Because,” Yuri takes a deep breath, “they are.”

“They’re Soulmates,” Otabek says, like that explanation is obvious. Like it’s enough for Yuri to excuse Victor’s rash decision to abandon his career and chase down a person who, in the end, didn’t even remember.

“Yeah, well.” Yuri feels the weight of his timer like a ring of fire around his wrist. “Some people just don’t like PDA.”

Otabek is not a complete social recluse. If he’s truly been keeping track of Yuri’s career like he claimed, then there’s no way he wouldn’t know about his dead timer. Yuri's timer stops counting down when he's ten, training at Yakov's camp, but nobody in the room comes to him. Nobody runs to him for a sweet embrace. There are no fireworks going off in his head, lightness in his chest like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, nothing changes. In that moment he knows, with gut-wrenching clarity, that there is no one for him. He wonders if Otabek is there when it happens, or if he's left for Vancouver by then.

Yakov is there when it happens, and he freezes, taken aback. His eyes fill with pity. Yuri has always known pity—it's in his Grandpa's eyes when Yuri spends the first night at his house, mother-less and father-less but not an orphan, in his neighbor's eyes when he tells them that no, he doesn't remember his mother, his mother who fucked off to Aphrodite knows where to marry a man that's not her Soulmate, but very rich and resourceful.

Maybe this is a punishment, a curse from Aphrodite. No one is supposed to split from their Soulmate; the thought itself is anathema.

But the concept of god has always seemed funny to Yuri, and at ten years old, he couldn't care less about a Soulmate. He cares about his flexibility and the choreography Yakov has assigned to him more. He cares about putting food on the table and keeping his Grandpa out of hospital. At sixteen, he still cares about those things. He hones that mindset as he grows up, growing opinions on Soulmates that are contrary to what the general public believes: that meeting your Soulmate is not the best possible thing that could ever have happened to a person.

To Yuri, the best thing that could ever happen to him is a gold medal.

Otabek must know that.

Yuri braces himself for the obligatory pity that’s coming. Instead, Otabek sets down two plates of vegetable curry on the table. “Eat,” he says, like that’s not what Yuri is going to do anyway.

Otabek borrows his mother’s car the next day and drives him to the airport. He gives Yuri a very manly pat on the back and a thumbs-up.

“I’ll see you at Worlds,” Otabek says instead of goodbye.

“I’ll crush you at Worlds,” Yuri promises, then because he now can, snaps a picture of Otabek and posts in on Instagram. He captions it, _thanks for granting me asylum from all this lovey-dovey bullshit_ , and tags it _#Almaty_.

-

He falls asleep on the plane and returns to training to Yakov’s incessant anger and Lilia’s death glares.

Victor and Yuuri have decided that this year’s World Championship will be the last for both of them. Victor never intends to go back to the ice to compete, and only did so because Yuri requested him to, very nicely. Regardless of who gets gold, they will get married. Not that Yuri cares about their love; their impending retirement means that Yuri truly only has one shot in beating them both. The GPF gold medalist title pales in comparison to how World champion sounds in Yuri’s ears, and he is taking them from both Yuuri and Victor.

At the Russian national championship, Victor takes gold to Yuri’s respectable silver. Yuuri, to absolutely no one's surprise, bags gold in Japan. But respectable isn’t the goal for Yuri, so he pushes himself, spends more time in the rink than he needs to. This is the last season for them, and Yuri's running out of time. A week before the Russian team flies to Shanghai, Lilia Baranovskaya physically wrestles him into his grandpa’s house and practically tells his grandpa to strap him to his bed. Yuri immediately rattles off to Yakov, but the old man is, apparently, the brains behind the operation to get Yuri to lose.

(“To rest, help me, Aphrodite— _to rest_ ,” Yakov says.)

Betrayed, Yuri loads Skype and calls Otabek. Yuri hasn’t been able to reach Otabek since his gold at Kazakhstan nationals. The World Championship is the most important event in a season; he is no doubt on phone-prohibition, avoiding all distractions to spend his waking days getting worked down on the ice. He regrets dialing his Skype now. It’s 21:47 in Almaty, Otabek must be sleeping like the dead, worn out after a full day training. Yuri envies him a little. His quads have been sloppy with the extra length in his lower limbs, and he hasn’t been able to do one with both arms raised since the nationals. This must be the puberty Mila warns him about.

“Hello?”

Yuri is not expecting Otabek to answer at all, so this new development startles him. “Otabek, hi,” Yuri says. “You should be asleep.”

“And you shouldn’t be calling me,” Otabek says. “Everything okay?”

Yuri’s rants are on the tips of his tongue, but he refrains, noticing the disheveled look Otabek’s sporting—he looks good still, and it pisses Yuri off—and his droopy eyes. “No, never mind,” Yuri shakes his head. “Go to sleep. You look like a zombie.”

“I was about to protest, but I walked past a mirror and you’re right, I look like I’ve been run over by a bus twice,” Otabek says, “and come back to life just to eat your brain.”

“You are surprisingly eloquent for a zombie,” Yuri smirks. He feels infinitely better already. This must be another side effect of puberty.

Otabek hums. “Sorry, I’m beat tonight. I’ll talk to you later?”

“At Worlds?” Yuri suggests.

“Too long,” Otabek protests. “But okay.”

Yuri surprises himself by saying, “Good night.” If Otabek’s nearly as surprised, he doesn’t show it. Otabek waves an absent hand on him sleepily. Yuri ends the call, and cannot believe his chest feels lighter than before. And he didn’t even get to vent.

With nothing to do, he ends up browsing his Instagram feed. No one has posted any new posts except for Phichit Chulanont, whose feed now is filled with hamsters. He writes cryptic captions under every picture, complete with suggestive winky faces and a bunch of Thai words Yuri doesn’t care enough to translate. Yuri somehow finds himself on YouTube, coming from a link posted by an skater fan on Instagram, watching a recent performance of Otabek at a charity dinner party. He’s wearing last year’s free skate costume, the white and blue one, but the song is Romeo and Juliet. The program flows smoothly like water. It’s the most relaxed Yuri has seen Otabek skate.

Well, to be fair, Yuri’s only seen him skate live twice.

He watches Otabek’s past programs until exhaustion creeps in and forces his eyes to close.

-

At Worlds, Phichit and Seung-gil meet for the first time. Their timers hit zero immediately.

Phichit gapes, his mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on land, for the first time in his life, at a loss for words. Seung-gil looks like he’s struck by lightning. A thousand cameras flash, and today makes history for the day that Phichit Chulanont, notorious for documenting every aspect of his life, looks uncomfortable under the scrutiny of camera lenses.

Seung-gil runs off to the Kiss and Cry. Phichit skates his short program looking dazed the entire time, and turns two of his jumps into singles. After the disappointing Kiss and Cry, Yuuri sprints to his side and leads the poor guy away from the press, away from prying eyes of the reporters. Yuri is reminded of how fierce Yuuri can be when protecting his loved ones.

Yuri, on the contrary, is not a complete asshole, and therefore worries about Phichit, sunshine personified and possibly half of the reason why Yuuri is still alive, but decides to keep his questions until after the competition.

Besides, Otabek’s skating next.

“Davai,” he tells Otabek just before he skates off.

Otabek offers him a thumbs-up.

Otabek easily diverges the attention from Phichit to his skating. He doesn't just diverge; he commands attention, and Yuri can't find it in himself to look away. He may even go as far as saying that he is enchanted, but no one will ever hear him say it aloud. Yuri remembers how difficult it is to reach Otabek, how their Skype calls turn, for the most part, into Yuri slowly watching him fall asleep before he taps the end button. He’s modified Samarkand Overture for a greater difficulty and higher scores. Otabek has been working his ass off, and he delivers.

The only thing that Yuri hates about the program is the ugly ass costume.

Otabek places second, below Yuri and, Yuri notes happily, above JJ. This will change when Victor and Yuuri take the ice. Yuri bites his lip at the score panel. At this point, he will end up taking home bronze to Victor and Yuuri's silver and gold. He will have to break down, and rebuild himself in the free skate.

Phichit stays at fourteen.

Otabek gets off the Kiss and Cry and approaches Yuri. "Not my best," Otabek says in lieu of greeting.

Yuri still thinks Otabek is enchanting. "Yeah, the last spin was completely lazy," Yuri says.

"Completely out of power," Otabek agrees. He glances briefly up at the rink side, where Leo de la Iglesia is taking off his blade guards, and his eyes narrow. "It's Katsuki's turn after Leo, right?"

Yuri nods. "Fuck knows where he is."

"Is he still with Phichit?"

"Probably, but Victor isn’t here either, so take my words with a grain of salt,” Yuri shrugs. He puts his hands behind his head and leans back. Leo’s program looks much smoother than when he debuted it at the Grand Prix, but still not flawless. His enthusiasm reminds Yuri of Phichit. No wonder they’re close friends, despite their age gap. “You know, I would have expected that Phichit, out of everyone, would be delighted to meet his Soulmate. Taking pictures of everything at every angle and shit. But I guess... you never really know."

Otabek’s eyes are still trained on Leo. "It is unexpected."

"Aren't you concerned? We’re supposed to feel like, ten times lighter and like the sun is shining out of the ass-crack of your Soulmate. You believe in Soulmates, right?"

Otabek, the asshole, replies, "Do you?"

Yuri scoffs. He crosses his arms over his chest. He feels defensive, all of a sudden. "Come on, Otabek, you have to know. My timer's been dead since I was ten, and nobody came to me. I don't have a Soulmate."

"I don't believe that,” Otabek says.

"That I don't have a Soulmate?" There’s a tightness in Yuri’s chest that comes with talking—or thinking about in general—about Soulmates, refusing to go even when Yuri is forcefully telling himself to calm down.

"Yes. We are created in pairs, we—"

“Then what the fuck do these zeroes mean?”

Otabek’s an idiot if he doesn’t think Yuri knows that. Yuri cuts him off, "Spare the preaching, Aphrodite. I know.” Does he think Yuri doesn’t go to school? He hears what people say to his grandpa about his mother. He’s read every book that has ever been written about Soulmates, even ones not written Russian, just to find a clue to what the fuck is wrong with him. He knows. “Look, do you think I never tried to find out what the fuck is wrong with me? I got people back there at DEI prodding and tugging at my timer, at me, but nothing works. It stays dead. I'm soulmate-less."

His eyes begin to feel warm. He tries to focus his vision on Leo’s eyesore of a costume, succeeding in avoiding eye contact with Otabek except all he sees is blurred colors. Fuck. The World championship is hardly the place to cry like a fucking baby.

"If Aphrodite is so good and loving, then why the fuck is Greece collapsing collectively as a country? Her temple is everywhere at every corner in Greece, she's worshipped—she's loved, isn’t she? _Then why the fuck is there still a war happening_?"

He needs to get the fuck out of here before he humiliates himself further. He stands up abruptly and leaves a dumbfounded Otabek behind.

-

 **[11:37]** otabek: _I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you._

 **[11: 38]** otabek: _Where are you?_

-

Yuri wakes up feeling infinitely worse than when he went to bed. His phone lies dead on the nightstand. He’s run out of the battery last night playing CandyCrush and deliberately not answering any texts. He goes to wash his face in the bathroom, and the sight that greets him almost makes him shriek.

He has a _pimple_.

What the fuck.

His already foul mood is further ruined when Mila points it out at breakfast, humiliates him in front of international skaters and Otabek, who hovers near him but doesn’t make any move to talk to him. It’s only fair that Yuri spills his apple juice on her. He takes his toast back to his room and eats while he sulks in his hotel room.

Lilia glares at him when he shows up to the public practice.

“You will apologize to Mila after this,” Lilia orders. Yuri sits down and ties his skate, grunting absentmindedly. Lilia seizes his hair and starts pulling it into a ponytail. Yuri scoots away from her in lightning speed.

“Yuri Plisetsky,” Lilia warns.

“I don’t want my hair to be tied,” Yuri defends.

“The reason why you have pimples right now is because you are growing,” Lilia explains.

Yuri is too humiliated to be angry. “I’ll just cover them with my hair,” he grumbles. His pimple itches. He wants nothing more than to pop it to oblivion. He wants it gone.

“It will only make it worse,” Lilia reasonably says. “Your hair is dirty.”

Yuri growls at her and snatches the hairtie from her hands. “Whatever,” he groans, but ties his hair anyway. He feels so fucking inadequate, despite landing all of his jumps and quads. Lilia doesn’t comment on his posture, so he must be fucking dreaming. Yakov doesn’t look too pleased and tells him to go over it one more time.

Meanwhile, other skaters have started to leave the rink.

Yuri skates exceptionally just to spite Yakov.

“That was amazing, Yurachka,” Yakov applauds. “But save some for the actual performance.”

It takes great strength for Yuri to refrain from punching his only coach.

-

Of course, he blows it at the free skate.

He doesn’t get a davai from Otabek. The asshole isn’t getting one either.

(But Phichit—

“PHICHIT,” Seung-gil yells, and for the first time in his career, shows any other emotion other than disgust. “DON’T FUCK UP.”

Phichit lights up like a Christmas tree)

He freefalls from third after the short program to fifth, below fucking JJ, and Otabek replaces him in his stead. Yuuri gets, predictably, gold, and Victor a respectable silver. They both hold a press conference afterwards. Probably about their marriage or fucking retirement, but Yuri will never know because he does not give a shit. He slips away at the banquet and sheds his expensive suit—the only suit he owns—that he bought only because Mila kept telling him to, “Treat yourself!”

He spends hours walking on the streets of Shanghai, and when he realizes he’s lost, his phone is dead and he has no way of contacting others.

“Yuri, get on.”

Yuri purposefully ignores him and keeps walking. Who cares if he doesn’t know where he’s going? His GPS is working just fine on his phone. He just needs to find a café—or any place that has electricity accessible to public—to charge his phone, get it to at least twenty percent, then he will be fine. He doesn’t need a repeat of last year’s hero/fairy debacle, and he definitely does not need Otabek, with his rented bike, to save him.

“It’s getting late, and you’re lost.”

“Is this what friends do?” Yuri snaps. “Annoy each other to death?”

Otabek sighs. Sighs, like he’s dealing with a child. “You took off at the banquet without telling anyone where you went. We were all worried.” The thrum of the engine sounds overwhelmingly loud in the empty street Yuri’s managed to get himself to. Yuri still stubbornly strides on. Otabek catches up easily—because he’s on a damn bike. “I’m stopping you from doing anything stupid. That’s what friends do.”

Yuri kicks the black rented bike, and carefully does not wince when his shin meets hard, cold metal. “Oh, fuck off! Go back to your Soulmate bullshit and cuddle up with your stupid bronze medal!”

Otabek turns off his engine. The sudden silence feels deafening. “I’m sorry,” he says earnestly. “I didn’t mean to—rub salt in your wounds like that.”

“I am _not_ wounded,” Yuri hisses.

Otabek’s expression is carefully, carefully blank. “I know. It was not my intention to imply that.”

Otabek’s no longer following him. He sits on his bike like a pathetic bastard. Yuri still hates that he still finds Otabek enchanting anyway, even when the older skater is pissing him off to no end. “Fine,” he spits out. “I’m hungry. Dumplings first, then hotel.”

Otabek’s mouth turns into a miniscule smile. So tiny, Yuri wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t spent nights watching Otabek trying to keep himself awake oceans away, through the pixelated image of his phone screen. “Your birthday was March 1, right?” he tosses Yuri a helmet. “I know a place. My treat.”

Yuri hadn’t even remembered his birthday. He probably would’ve, if birthdays are treated as anything other than a normal day in his household of two. Grandpa bakes more pirozhkis and gives him more pocket money on his birthday, and it’s funny because the entire time it’s always been Yuri’s competition money. Sure, Yuri’s Angels are especially rowdy on Twitter on his birthday, spamming his timeline with a thousand kitten edits, but really, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Yuri hasn’t forgiven Otabek yet. He gets on the bike with a scowl. “These better be some amazing dumplings,” he threatens.

Otabek revs the engine alive in response.

-

The dumplings are amazing, but Yuri would first plunge into Mariana’s trench before he lets Otabek hear him saying it.

“Guang Hong told me about this place,” Otabek says.

“I’ve forgiven you, you don’t need to make small talk to make sure I’m not still mad,” Yuri replies.

Otabek doesn’t look amused. “I really just wanted to tell you Guang Hong told me about this place.”

Otabek seems to be friends with a lot of skaters. Considering that he moves around the continents to train, it’s probably a given. Yuri remembers Otabek casually mentioning Leo’s and Guang Hong’s name in a conversation, even a suspicious Jean, who can’t possibly be—

“Otabek.” A realization strikes Yuri down to his core. He thinks he’s going to be sick. “Are you—are you _friends_ with JJ?”

Otabek blinks once, then twice. Drinks his iced tea (people drink tea with ice on this continent, it’s bizarre). All too calmly, he answers, “We shared a rink together in Vancouver.”

Yuri has never, ever felt more betrayed in his life. Not even when Yakov made Lilia force him to rest. The dumplings turn to cardboard in his mouth. “I can’t believe—“ Yuri points an accusatory finger at Otabek’s chest. The latter looks positively unfazed. “Do you take him on dramatic motor rides in Barcelona, too? Save him from his stupid JJ Girls? Aphrodite help me—is the haircut a matching friendship haircut?”

Yuri is ready to bolt out of the restaurant if that were the case.

“No, Yuri,” Otabek answers gently. “That’s all you.”

Years later, Yuri will remember today as the beginning of everything, and laugh good-naturedly at how dense sixteen years old Yuri had been. Present Yuri, however, has no idea what the fuck is happening, and why his chest lifts at the implication that he’s special, according to Otabek. It almost makes him forget about his fifth rank.

Yuri drags the rest of the dumplings close to his plate. “Any friend of JJ isn’t going anywhere near my dumplings.”

“I bought them.”

“Whatever. I can’t believe you wronged me so bad.”

“Dramatic,” Otabek flicks his forehead. Yuri reels, hissing, touching his forehead, forever contaminated by the hand of a friend of JJ’s.

“You are no longer my friend.”

Otabek ignores him completely and steals his precious dumplings. Yuri is in a state of disbelief. “Oh, also, Katsuki and Victor are not retiring from figure skating,” he mentions, casually like he’s talking about the damn weather, and Yuri almost chokes.

“What the fuck,” Yuri says.

“They’d retire after the Grand Prix Final,” Otabek says. “Katsuki says it’s fitting, that they’d start everything at the Grand Prix Final and end everything at the Grand Prix Final. That means—“

“I still have a chance at beating them,” Yuri says. “Holy shit.”

“If you were at the banquet instead of running off to God knows where,” Otabek sucks from his straw, “You would’ve known.”

Yuri grimaces. “I may have overreacted.”

“If I’d won gold at the Grand Prix and finished fifth at Worlds, I’d feel humiliated too,” Otabek assures easily. Yuri is about retort that it isn’t true, then remembers that Otabek is nowhere to be seen at last year’s banquet. Otabek has won two bronze medals at the World Championship for two years in a row now, and yet not one medal at the Grand Prix Final. “But maybe, next time, make sure your battery is at 50% at least. Leaving anywhere when your iPhone is at 12% is practically a death sentence.”

“You were robbed last year,” Yuri tells him for the umpteenth time. Otabek shakes his head and doesn’t disagree.

After the meal, they ride around on the bike for a while, driving past Shanghai Disneyland. Yuri won’t admit to anyone that it’s his lifelong dream to go to Disneyland. Sure, he thinks Soulmates are nothing but bullshit, but he loves Mulan, and is still salty that Frozen has no musical number with ice dancing in it. It’s a complete waste of ice.

Otabek parks his rented bike at the hotel; someone from the renting agency will pick it up tomorrow, as he has to leave for Almaty first thing in the morning. Team Russia—well, it’s mostly Victor—requests a day off in Shanghai to go sightseeing. Lilia doesn’t look very happy to oblige, but then again, the only time Yuri’s seen her make a face that resembles a smile in the slightest is when he broke Victor’s world record.

And… well, he can’t exactly break records every day, can he?

Guang Hong, having gotten his driver’s license, happily offers to drive Otabek to the airport. Yuri sees him off in the hotel lobby, covering his Team Russia jacket with his favorite black hoodie that he hopes obscure the huge pimple on his forehead. He seriously hopes, for their sake, that no one sees. The world will never see Yuri with pimples, and if someone does—well, Yuri has no other choice but to kill them.

Otabek, the asshole, sees right through him and peels off the hoodie from his head. Yuri slaps his hand and pulls the hoodie over his head immediately. “DO YOU WANT TO GET KILLED EARLY IN THE MORNING, ASSHOLE?”

“Covering it with your hair makes it even worse.”

“STOP SOUNDING LIKE LILIA.”

Otabek rummages through his bag like Yuri isn’t currently screaming bloody murder at him and waking up the entire floor. The Kazakh chucks a pinky-sized white tub at Yuri, hitting him squarely in the chest before falling to his open palm.

“Acne cleanser cream,” Otabek explains. “Works like a wonder on me.”

“Ugh,” Yuri whines. He keeps the tube in his pocket anyway. “I fucking hate puberty.”

Otabek mock-salutes him. “See you at the Grand Prix. Try harder to defend your goal!”

“You try hard! You didn’t even make it to the podium!”

Yuri watches until Guang Hong’s car disappears in Shanghai traffic, and texts Otabek that he hopes Otabek doesn’t die in a plane crash, because it’ll seriously be a shame if Otabek dies before winning his GPF gold.

Nonetheless, Yuri’s not letting anyone take away his gold.

Not even the pig and his trophy fiancé.

-

Defending his GPF gold, as it turns out, insanely difficult.

It wouldn’t have been, if it weren’t for his fucking growth spurt, and now the god of puberty rains down on him with stupid, new curses, breaking his body every day and forcing him to relearn jumps and quads. It’s like he’s back to being ten and clueless on ice, adoring Victor for all the wrong reasons, practicing for hours just to be let down by the limitations of his own body.

No one is happy about this new development. Lilia has been drinking wine for dinner, Yakov is looking up retirement plans, and Victor offers to coach him. “Like an actual coach,” Victor says. Right, because the year he spent with Katsuki really isn’t him actually coaching him. Yuri’s answer is to plug in his earphones, listens to death metal, and works on his now imperfect flexibility.

Except for JJ. The Canadian asshole is having a field day.

Whoever says Canadians are nice have never breathed the same air as JJ.

He keeps posting pictures of bent at ridiculous angles and sending it to Yuri. What the hell is he trying to accomplish? Death?

He gets even more infuriating now that Isabella (good Aphrodite, please give him some love now that he’s learnt her actual fucking name) agrees to marry him. Poor her, saddled with JJ at such a young age. This is why Yuri thinks Soulmates are bullshit. No one should be so unfortunate to be bound to JJ for life. Nobody even wants to be JJ’s friend!

Well, except for his own best friend, apparently. Yuri will always be butthurt over that.

He’s regained at least some form of his old regality back when the assignments for the GPF are announced. The GPF might not be the most important event in a competition, but it still makes money. Grandpa has been doing well this year, all his medications are working, and he doesn’t get tired as easily as he used to. He even shows up to practice one day—a practice where Yuri, not knowing what to do with his longer limbs, falls over on his ass not once, but twice—and takes him to get milkshakes afterwards, just like the old times.

Yuuri’s assigned to Rostelecom Cup and Cup of China, in an amusing repeat of last year. Victor will be competing in Skate Canada (pfft, say goodbye to that medal, JJ) and Trophee de France. They’re both crying dramatically over it, unable to imagine a competition apart, and start making promises to do this and that once they advance to the Grand Prix Final.

Yuri has Trophee de France with Mila (and Victor, ew) and NHK Trophy with Georgi.

Yuri immediately calls Otabek, who, miraculously, picks up.

“Where did you get assigned to?” Yuri asks.

“Skate America and Cup of China,” Otabek answers, and Yuri’s heart sinks a little at that.

“Well, we better meet at the GPF.”

Yuri finishes second at Trophee de France to Victor’s gold, predictably, and aims for gold at the NHK Trophy. Yakov reminds him not to push himself, since his body is growing each day, and advises him to aim realistic. Getting another silver—or bronze—would be enough to bring him to the final, where he should redirect all of his efforts to. But for Yuri, aiming realistic is aiming low, so he only pretends to listen.

Georgi’s not a real threat at the NHK when he’s seen him skate countless times. Yuri knows his weaknesses and flaws. He should keep an eye out for Phichit, who he knows has been practicing as hard as he is, if the videos he keeps tagging as #teaser on Instagram were any indication. He can handle the rest just fine.

When he gets to the hotel in Beijing, he’s greeted with the sight of Phichit embracing Seung-gil—who is not even competing, he withdrew due to an injury—in a hug that is way too intimate for public view. Yuri wants to kick them both, but hesitates because even he doesn’t have the heart to do any harm to sunshine personified, Phichit Chulanont.

Besides, Seung-gil has a goddamn Siberian husky. They’re practically wolves, for all Yuri cares. Dog people are not to be trusted. They probably know ten ways to kill a person with an elastic band, and Yuri still wants to live, really.

Instead, he yells at them, “GODDAMMIT, IS EVERYONE TURNING INTO VICTOR AND YUURI?” and slams the door on his way into his hotel room. He informs Otabek of this new nuisance, threatens to slash Otabek’s tires if he doesn’t make it to the GPF this year. Otabek texts back, I guess some people can really turn winter into summer, obviously referring to Seung-gil and Phichit. So cheesy; Yuri can’t believe he is friends with the guy.

At breakfast, he slips into a seat next to Leo de la Iglesia, who only looks at him half-terrified before he resumes his breakfast. Georgi is sitting with hockey players and Yuri is having none of that. Leo keeps looking back and forth between his phone and Yuri’s face. After two minutes of silence, Yuri decides he’s had enough.

“What?” he demands.

Leo’s eyes boggle. “Um! I was just asking Otabek how to proceed with you! Because I have no idea how and you’re so fucking intimidating, holy shit, why did Otabek wait around for you for five years?” Realizing he accidentally insulted the current GPF champion, Leo adds hastily, “I mean, um, you know! In a good way! Intimidating in a good way!”

Yuri is not at all offended. After being babied by Victor for so long, it feels like a success when people four years older than him finds him scary. “Don’t bother with texting Otabek. He won’t answer until hell freezes over when he’s in a competition like this.”

“Oh,” Leo pockets his phone. “You… you text him often?”

Ah, the classic, ‘Try to find a common topic so we won’t sit in silence’ move. “Yeah. I’ve been trying to get him to use emojis, but he’s so hopeless with technology.”

“I know, right?” Leo is now grinning. “He doesn’t even understand memes.”

Leo’s phone buzzes, and like any other millennial, he fishes out his phone faster than lightning. His smile grows as he reads the text that just came. His thumbs fly on the screen in that same impressive speed. If Yuri cranes his neck just long enough, he’ll be able to see that Leo is texting Otabek’s Chinese friend, Guang Hong Ji.

But he’s smiling like Victor is when he sees Yuuri.

That’s when Yuri realizes the bare strip of skin around his wrist. Leo’s not wearing his timer. Right, he’s from America. Talks of making the timer optional for its citizens have been brewing in America for quite some time, to the approval of the younger generation and opposition of religious groups. Many teenagers in America show protest by detaching the timer from their wrists without the approval of local DEI. It does not lead in immediate penalty, like in many countries including Russia, but it’s still frowned upon.

The only times a timer may be removed is when one has met their match, or if it simply stops counting, like Yuri’s did. He wonders if Leo’s taken his off in protest, or if he’s met his Soulmate, and he can’t remember for the love of him if Guang Hong’s still wearing his timer.

Yuri finishes his breakfast quickly so he can start practicing early. He likes it when the rink is vacant except for himself; it gives him a calm he never achieves in his home rink in St. Petersburg or through yoga. His plan is ruined in an instant when he sees that there are already two people there, Phichit in his sports gear, and Seung-gil, leaning on his crutches, putting on a hamster hat on Phichit’s head. Yuri hates to interrupt such a heartfelt moment, but no one is indeed allowed here except for the coach and the skater who is competing. Seung-gil is, visibly, not a competitor.

Yuri coughs twice, subtly. Seung-gil staggers back as fast as he could in his crutches, and gives Yuri a curt nod before exiting the room. It may be the first and only time Yuri will ever get to see the almighty Korean skater blushing.

On ice, Phichit has already started his warm-ups. He looks lovestruck. Dear Aphrodite, if you want everyone to be happy and in love, please don’t also make them as dumb as Victor.

Yuri takes off his blade guards and skates to where Phichit is. “So, you and the grumpy guy are going good, huh?”

“Aw, Yurio! Are you asking me if I’m happy?”

“I clearly did not!” Yuri makes hurry to skate away from Phichit’s shit-eating grin, but Phichit is leaner and shorter and therefore faster, and he cannot get away.

“I’m happy, if that’s what you’re asking,” Phichit answers joyfully, lifting an arm as he jumps a Triple Axel. He touches down on one arm, but he didn’t fall. Yuri notices his bare wrist, the lighter strip of skin where the timer had been, and feels for his timer, still wrapped around his wrist.

“That’s under-rotated,” Yuri says quietly. Phichit smiles at his comment, and does the axel once more. He lands it perfectly.

“You must be wondering about my poor reaction at Worlds,” Phichit says.

“Not really,” Yuri lies. No amount of explaining will make him understand the feeling of finding your Soulmate. He doesn’t have one.

Phichit claps his hands together, all too indulgent to recite their first meeting story. “Well! If you must know, I was definitely shocked. I knew that I would be meeting my Soulmate that moment, but I didn’t expect it to be him. We never talked before, and he was so distant, so— _disgusted_ at the thought of fraternizing, I didn’t even want to get anywhere near him at first.”

“Still didn’t ask,” Yuri insists.

“Besides, I didn’t expect my Soulmate to be a guy!” Phichit cheerfully disregards him.

Yuri raises one eyebrow. “Uh, sorry if this offends you, but your favorite movie is The King and the Skater, which is like, _every_ gay person’s favorite movie.” The King and the Skater is a classic movie about a male skater from Detroit who falls into a time machine and lands in some ancient kingdom that is probably meant to a mix between Thailand and China, except it only stars one Thai actor as the king’s second best friend who speaks probably seven lines, and are possibly Korean. The rest of the cast is, distastefully, pasty Americans who use yellowface. The skater ends up marrying the king, until he gets sucked back into the time machine, wherein their story continues again in the sequel. “You choreographed two programs to it! Even the horrible sequel!”

“Okay, you’re right. I always knew, I guess, but the moment it happened, I was—dumbstruck, I guess. Even if I’d known. I just never expected it to happen while I was on international TV.”

“At least you didn’t kiss him like some people would.”

Phichit giggles. Dear Aphrodite, this guy is five years older than him, and he still looks cuter doing it. “The thing is, I’ve always felt a little… apprehensive with the idea of Soulmates. That someone up there is controlling how we love, who we love… it’s scary. I didn’t want the person I’m supposed to be in love with for the rest of my life to be forced to love me, and I don’t want that for me either. When it turned to be Seung-gil, I was sure I’d handed my head on a platter.”

“That’s… probably the meanest thing I’ve heard you say about anyone.”

“And I feel bad now for even saying it!” Phichit waves his hand. “But you know, I remember this one line from The King and the Skater—“

“You are such a stereotype.”

“’It only takes time for two people to fall in love.’ So that’s what I gave to Seung-gil and me. I gave us time,” Phichit looks around, nostalgic as if he hadn’t just seen his Soulmate three minutes ago. “And look where we are now.”

Ever the party-pooper, Yuri says, “You do realize that after the king said that, the skater fell into the time machine and never saw the king again, don’t you?” They meet again in the sequel, but it’s a horrible sequel so Yuri will forget its existence.

Phichit touches his hamster hat with smitten smile. He does not seem to hear Yuri.

“Why hamsters?” Yuri finally asks.

“Ah, I was hoping you’d ask me that, Yuri! Listen, there’s this project that I’ve been working on called Phichit On Ice…”

-

The final results have Yuri seething because the pig, in all his ‘I’m going to retire to become a full-time househusband’ glory, stands atop the highest part of the podium with a new world record for the short program. He doesn’t care at all that his silver technically wins against Victor’s bronze, doesn’t care at all that JJ got what he deserves at the last place.

The official celebratory picture that ISU posts on their official website is of Victor kissing Yuuri’s gold medal while Yuri stands on Victor’s side, eyes boring daggers into his back, turned to Yuri.

They want to get married as soon as they can. They have no specific request except to have the wedding take place in Hasetsu, so naturally, Phichit takes matters into his own hands. He invites everyone to a groupchat (dubbed by Chris ‘Victor’s Coming of Age,’ which Phichit unfailingly changes back to, ‘Wedding planners’ every time) and begins to organize the wedding of the year (according to Russian QG) in under two weeks. Victor and Yuuri are just in time to have a Christmas beach wedding.

While Chris mostly slacks off to flirt with his brown-haired choreographer, Phichit is doing actual best man work, like making sure Victor and Yuuri don’t go elope before the wedding is even officiated and reminding Yuuri’s old ballet teacher—who, surprise, surprise, knows Lilia from their time skating together—to lay down the sake and to say, once in a while, Yuuri, you are doing the same thing when Seung-gil and I get married, to which Seung-gill responds with, We are not having a beach party.

Phichit’s appointed Yuri to the task of babysitting Makkacchin. If Yuri doesn’t tolerate him, he would have blanched and slapped Phichit goodbye. As a cat person, watching a dog makes him feel like he’s committed treason to the High Council of Cat People. Thankfully, Leo, who arrives suspiciously in the same car as Guang Hong Ji, is as stupid about dogs as Victor is, and volunteers to entertain the ring-bearer. Yuri makes him promise to lay down his life before anything happens to Makkachhin or the rings he wears around his neck before leaving Leo and Guang Hong to complain to Otabek.

The person in question is sitting near the water, his shoes and socks off, slacks folded up to his knees. Yuri plops down beside him. “Aphrodite help me, I need a drink. And careful with the sand. Phichit’s going to throw a fit if your suit’s dirty before he even gets a decent picture.”

Otabek looks at him. “You’re not even of legal age to drink.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I need a drink.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching Makkacchin?” Otabek asks.

“I got Leo and Guang Hong watching them,” Yuri says. “Can you imagine me watching over a dog, Otabek? A big, old dog?”

Otabek turns his eyes back to the waves, gentle and crashing at once. “I see you’ve met Leo and Guang Hong.”

“How did you meet them?” Yuri asks. “Did you save them on a bike and rabid fangirls, too?”

“I had the same coach as Leo when I was still training in Boston. I didn’t know enough English and he taught me. I know Guang Hong because, well, they come in pair. Order one for two.” Otabek bumps their shoulders teasingly, allowing a brief smile before his face turns serious again. “I told you, that’s all you.”

Yuri scoffs. He pulls his knees to his chest and hugs them, looking out at the line where the sky meets the sea, blue and blue. They’re sitting on the part of the sand that’s dry, close enough to the water that they get tiny splashes, but far enough away their suits will not be ruined. Waves lick the edge of Yuri’s white sneakers. They’re a new pair, a gift from Victor and Katsudon for his sixteenth birthday. They most’ve cost a fortune and Yuri initially refused to wear such nice shoes to the beach, where they will get dirty, but Victor insists.

“Why isn’t Leo wearing his timer?” Yuri asks bluntly. He doesn’t want to overthink the meaning of that’s all you, if it means anything at all to Otabek.

Otabek looks taken aback. This is the first time Yuri’s seen him surprised. Yuri can see that Otabek is considering his next words very carefully, and Yuri realizes that perhaps it’s a topic that he should ask Leo himself. “He fell in some with someone else,” Otabek answers simply in the end.

“The protestors in the US,” Yuri says, “Is he a part of it?”

“No,” Otabek says. Then, “Yes.”

“Which one is it?”

Otabek makes a pained sound in the back of his head. “I think you should ask him yourself,” he suggests. “This is personal, and I don’t feel like giving out details that he would’ve liked to keep to himself.” Yuri is almost annoyed at that. Does Otabek think he’s going to rat out Leo? He’s not a child, he’s good at keeping secrets. Then he thinks of how he never tells anyone why he still keeps his timer, and decides that he can understand Leo, a little.

Yuri nods and lets the subject go.

Wow, he is growing so much.

-

Yuuri and Victor exchange rings—thank you, Leo and Guang Hong for ensuring Makkacchin is on his best behavior—and by the time they finish saying their vows, there is no dry eye left in the party. Even Seung-gil looks somber.

Except for Yuri. He definitely has dust in his eyes.

Afterwards, there’s music and dancing and speeches from both best men. Phichit’s speech is, of course, lengthy and funny, and he tells it like a bedtime story. Chris’ speech is, astonishingly, age-appropriate, and then he ruins it by making a dick joke at the end of his speech that turns Yuuri’s ears red. There’s booze, and Yuri is very tempted to steal some, but with Otabek on his side that’s not happening any time soon.

He means to approach Leo and interrogate him on the subject of his timer when a bouquet of flowers falls into his arms instead.

“Who the fuck—“

His eyes skim the party-goers and notes, curiously, of two things in common: they’re all quiet and staring at him like he’s grown another fucking pimple. Then it dawns on him that he’s caught the bouquet.

Aphrodite is a cruel god.

And it’s a cruel joke—the next person to be married is the only person at the wedding with a dead timer and no Soulmate to match. If there’s no Soulmate, then there’s no wedding, because it’s a crime to marry someone who is not your Soulmate in Russia, in almost every country around the world.

Yuri can’t comprehend how the goddess of love can be so cruel. The only conclusion that he can draw is this: Aphrodite is a false god.

He shoves the bouquet to Seung-gil because he’s nearest, who accepts it bewilderedly, and tells everyone to fuck off and continue partying. He sees Yuuri making a move as if he wants to go to his side, but Otabek beats him to it. He grabs Yuri by his wrist—by his timer—and drags him to get food. Yuri is grateful that he doesn’t try to offer him comfort, and understands that what Yuri needs instead is a distraction.

The giant chocolate fountain proves to be an excellent distraction. Yuri takes about a dozen strawberries and drizzles them in chocolate.

“How many more hours at the gym would I have to add if I eat all twelve strawberries?” Yuri asks.

“One strawberry has about 30 calories, multiply that by 12 and you have 360 calories. Add that up with the amount of calories from the chocolate, which are around 500, and you have a sum of 860 calories that you have to burn. That’s about one hour running at a speed of ten miles per hour.”

“Wow, okay, never mind,” Yuri puts down the plate of chocolate-covered strawberries in horror. “I’ll just eat one and let the Nishigori triplets have the rest.”

“You’d give them sugar high,” Otabek says, “and they’d drive Yuuko insane.”

“Then eat one!” Yuri picks one strawberry from the plate. “The triplets will have one less strawberry to eat, and they’d drive Yuuko a little less insane.”

Otabek steps forward. “They’d _still_ drive Yuuko insane regardless.”

Then he leans down, steadies Yuri’s hand, and eats the strawberry from his fingers. The wet stripe of Otabek’s tongue stuns Yuri, and his breath hitches, eyes unable to leave Otabek’s dark irises as he pulls off with an obscene pop. There’s chocolate on the corner of his mouth.

“Why is your hand trembling?”

It takes a while for Yuri to register that Otabek is asking him a question. Fuck if he knows the answer. He yanks his hand off Otabek’s grip and petulantly says, “Wipe off the damn chocolate, you dumb hick. What are you, a primitive?” He shoves tissues into Otabek’s hands.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Otabek won’t let that go. Yuri’s managed to land a friendship with somebody so earnest and he does not know how he should feel about it. He knows that right now, his heart is beating at a faster rate than normal and his fingers feel impossibly hot.

Yuri is saved from the humiliation of answering by Leo dragging him into dancing with him, shouting, “I’ll return him to you in one piece, Otabek!” He looks around for Guang Hong and finds Phichit dancing with him, twirling him around. Seung-gil, still in crutches, frowns at the dance floor. Yuri can’t tell if that’s just his face or if he’s truly exasperated at the party.

Yuri is only mildly miffed that Leo is the one leading the dance. Still, if Leo dares to do this at any other time—aka, any time he’s not trying to forget the wetness of Otabek’s tongue—Yuri will have him killed.

Leo smiles at him like he’s trying to tell Yuri something. Yuri scowls.

“Not a single comment,” Yuri warns.

“Wasn’t gonna say anything!” Leo says.

“If you tell me that what I did was admirable or brave—“

“What if I think it really is?” Leo challenges him. Yuri narrows his eyes, contemplating if he should kick him in the shin, then remembers Otabek and his tongue on his fingers and decides he can plan the American’s death later.

“To keep the timer even after—“

“Shut up,” Yuri hisses. “Don’t want to hear it.”

“I took it off because it felt like freedom,” Leo tells him. “Aphrodite is the goddess of love, but she doesn’t control love. She doesn’t dictate how we love. She doesn’t pick for us the person that we should love for the rest of our lives. It’s not what she does.”

Yuri feels his chest tighten. “Then why the fuck do these timers exist?”

“I don’t know,” Leo says. “But I know that I want to love on my own volition.”

“You can’t, not without the timer,” Yuri says. “You can only fall in love with your Soulmate.”

“What if I can pick my Soulmate for myself?”

Yuri has nothing to say to that.

Leo squeezes his shoulder with a meaningful smile, and releases him to find Guang Hong.

Alone in the dance floor, there’s nothing much for him to do other than observe the others. Victor and Yuuri (the Nikiforov-Katsukis, they insist to be called from now on) are lost in each other’s eyes, wearing matching rings and matching smitten, happy smiles. Mila is demanding a dance with Otabek, much to Sara’s annoyance, an opportunity her brother exploits to tow Sara into dancing with him, that Czech puppy following them the whole time. Sara breaks free from her creepy brother’s grasp and steals Mila away to dance near the other newly-weds, JJ and his poor Soulmate, Isabella.

It’s a miracle Yuri doesn’t barf from all this love bullshit.

Now partner-less, Otabek catches his eyes and tilts his eyes slightly. Yuri folds his arms over his chest. If Otabek wants a dance, then he’s going to work hard to get it.

Sighing, Otabek approaches him and extends a hand.

“Are you going to dance with me or not?”

Yuri sticks his tongue at him. “But I’m leading. I’m growing taller than you, after all.”

Otabek throws his head back and laughs. Yuri still has no idea what’s so fucking funny even after the music ends.

He wonders if kissing is exclusively reserved for lovers, because in that moment, he _kind of_ wants to kiss Otabek.


	2. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2016, or: puberty hits, Yuri finds out about Otabek's secret hobby, injuries happen, the entire Altin family is otherworldly and fucking gorgeous, Yuri pulls a Victor and choreographs an entire routine for Otabek's birthday, and Yuri has to deal with the fact that things are ephemeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) yes I rewatched xmen and the rage and serenity part is from the Gayest scene in movie history  
> 2) I fucked with the dates a little and I know that skate America wasn’t held in October in 2016 but I need it for story purposes  
> 3) Im sorry this took so long, this chapter was just so hard to write and I had to push back several scenes to take place over the next chapter, or else too many things would happen in 2016 and this chapter would be over 20k words  
> 4) Engineering school is Hell  
> 5) thank you so much for all your kind words! i hope this chapter satisfies. i personally call this the chapter from hell.  
> 6) if youre following my tumblr!!! you would notice that [all](http://thepoetsarejust.tumblr.com/post/157146205715/ong-i-just-found-your-fic-if-aphrodite-gives-a) [the previews](http://thepoetsarejust.tumblr.com/post/156467803445/i-absolutely-neeeeeeeed-more-of-your-fic-like) didnt make it to this chapter....and to that i say im sorry, and i promise you, we'll get there next chapter.  
> 7) currently unbetaed and unformatted, but I WILL GET BACK TO THAT. i just need to get it out first.

2016 opens up with an injury Yuri sustains at Russian nationals. From there on, lying on a thin hospital bed as figures in white poke and prod at his leg, Yuri knows 2016 is going to be a shit year.

He can't make it to European, and Lilia threatens to burn all of his leopard print jackets if he dares to do anything but lay on his bed like a kicked little dog. It's not ideal and Yuri is already stressing over the bills he would have to pay with _money_ , money that he doesn't have right now because he is bedridden with a fucked-up knee.

His grandpa, with an earnest, determined look on his face, ensures him that he will pay for Yuri with his pension money. Yuri vehemently refuses. Half of the reason why he skates is because he wants to avoid using Grandpa’s pension money as long as he can. The other half is because he wants to spite whoever says boys aren’t supposed to be gentle and graceful.  

After three weeks of absolute torture, Yuri is released from the hospital and finally given permit to use his legs instead of treating like it's made of the thinnest glass in the world. He is not allowed to be on the ice yet, so of course he immediately goes to search for his custom-made skates, only to find that Victor and Yuuri have confiscated them. Knowing reasoning with them will end in vain, Yuri considers renting a pair at a local ice rink, then remembers the Yuri's Angels that always lurk in St. Petersburg and in the end, decides it absolutely is not worth the trouble. Staying home is the most tolerable option he has right now, until Lilia lets him back at her studio.

He spends most of his time doing light stretches and exercise, helping his grandpa around the house, and complaining to Otabek through Skype. He's going insane with boredom and antsy with his lack of income. It infuriates him to no end, that the one thing he knows he is fucking stellar at is the one thing that he is forbidden to do. Otabek suggests that maybe it's time to get back on that school work he's been neglecting in favor of his skating career.

"Don't remind me about school," Yuri groans. "You are bad at giving advice."

"It's good advice," Otabek defends. "You just don't want to do it."

Their conversations cover a wide range of topics, from skating to bees to Mickey's latest attempt to thirdwheel Mila and Sara's date, things that Yuri usually doesn't care much about, but now he finds crucial, coming out of Otabek's mouth.

Otabek tells him stories about his new coach—he always seems to change coaches—who is, in ten various ways, better than his last, but also the current bane of his existence. She is relentless and strict, iron-fisted and incredibly disciplined, and requires Otabek to spend no less than six hours on the ice. Otabek feels like he's being destroyed after training’s over, but he also feels like he's finally living up to his potentials. Yuri is glad to hear it; a lot skaters truly have the potential to become worthy of his attention, unfortunately, they always seem to lack the resources or simply stuck with the wrong coach.

Otabek's new choreographer has him excited, though, as he has worked with Virtue and Moir in the past and helped them with _Carmen_. Yuri points out to him that it might mean he has to do ballet again, and the sheer horror on Otabek's face is so priceless, Yuri has no regrets at all screenshotting it. Otabek threatens to block his Skype if it emerges the next day as a meme.

With this new program, Otabek effortlessly dominates nationals and snags gold at Four Continents, defeating JJ by a wide margin. Otabek’s truly beginning to shape up to become Yuri’s equal—not that Yuri doesn’t consider him as a worthy opponent before. When last year he had been intense and powerful, this year he’s still those things, but also graceful and simply mesmerizing. Yuri’s instincts say he should start regarding Otabek as an enemy, but he couldn’t find anything but happiness for the way Otabek has improved. If anything, it motivates Yuri, though in a distinctly different way that Yuuri’s skating moves him.

Otabek goes MIA for the rest of the night (well, afternoon, in Taipei’s case), but pictures of Otabek in a club, out of all places, surge up on Instagram. It wouldn’t have been all that scandalous if Otabek’s not wearing one of those sleeveless t-shirts with arm-holes so wide, anyone can take a peek at his nipples, if Otabek lets them, exposing his awful biceps and an honest-to-good tattoo just above his elbows. Even more than that, Otabek is positively DJ-ing, like some weird hybrid of the world’s most earnest person and a complete fuckboy.

Phichit posts a shaky video of Otabek’s impromptu setlist. It’s surprisingly good, even if Yuri’s not the type to venture into rave songs, if they can be classified as songs at all. Yuri’s horrified that he doesn’t know of this secret talent of Otabek’s even after one year of friendship, or his damn tattoo, and even more so at how much fun Otabek looks like he’s having. He’s smiling freely, and Yuri feels an irrational burst of jealousy that something else can make Otabek smile like that other than him.

Otabek calls his Skype in the evening, the next day (morning, probably, for him) and apologizes for disappearing.

Yuri rolls his eyes. “It’s okay, Mr. DJ, it’s not that your hidden hobby and tattoo are a surprise for me,” Yuri says, “who, if anyone’s counting, have been your best friend for over a year!”

Otabek’s wince is almost audible. “It isn’t hidden,” he says. “I only remix stuff, usually at home. I would need a bit of, um, liquid courage to do it in front of people.” People that are not him, Yuri supposes. Ugh.

“How come I never knew, then?” Yuri crosses his arms on his chest.

“Because you never asked?” Otabek says.

Yuri scoffs. Well, fair enough. “And that tattoo?”

Otabek hesitates. He looks like he’s swallowing cotton as he says, “I got it two years ago—“

“TWO YEARS?” Yuri shrieks.

“—after my first medal at Four Continents, with my parents’ consent.”

Yuri cannot believe what he’s hearing. “ _Of course_ you had to ask for your parents’ permission,” he grumbles. Otabek Altin, human hybrid of a bad boy and grandpa’s dream son-in-law.

“I didn’t tell you because I don’t want to give you any ideas,” Otabek says after a while. “Getting a tattoo isn’t as cool as it sounded. My parents tried to talk me out of it. Now, I kind of regretted it.” Come to think of it, Otabek almost never wears anything but jackets or long-sleeved shirts outside of the rink. Even during public practice, Otabek is always bundled up in his Team Kazakhstan jacket. Yuri never wonders why, thinking it’s just his friend’s preferred fashion choices, but now he knows why: Otabek is ashamed of his tattoo.

Yuri considers his response. “It’s decent,” Yuri offers truthfully. Otabek’s tattoo is three black rings around his bicep, one slightly thinner than the two, positioned in the middle. “It’s not, like, mind-blowing or fantastic, it’s just okay. I’ve seen way more regretful tattoos.” Otabek looks strangely relieved at that. “Also, what do you mean by giving me any ideas? I’ve always wanted a tattoo, and it absolutely has nothing to do with you.”

“Let me guess,” Otabek says dryly, “A tattoo of a tiger?”

Yuri’s face flushes. “Obviously not,” he lies. Okay, so he maybe sees where Otabek is going.

“Sure,” Otabek says skeptically.

“Alright, don’t think you’re off the hook yet! You’re a DJ—what the hell, Otabek? I thought you only listen to classical music!” Yuri demands.

“I don’t _only_ listen to classical music,” Otabek explains. “I like all kinds of music. I told you, I don’t really DJ seriously. My friend’s private parties, birthdays, weddings… It’s nothing serious.”

“But you look like you were having fun,” Yuri grumbles.

“That’s exactly the point,” Otabek laughs, then does a double take. “Are you pouting?”

Yuri splutters. “I don’t pout. People like Victor pout. Guang Hong pouts. I—I _glower_.”

Otabek doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he looks amused. Thankfully, he makes no further comments. “I’m sorry I never told you about my hidden talents,” he says finally.

Yuri doesn’t feel so inclined to forgive him that quickly. “Action speaks louder than words, Altin,” he states.

Otabek shakes his head. He still looks so damn amused. Yuri has no idea what the hell is so amusing, but figures asking Otabek about it will only make him more amused. “Alright! Would a mixtape please Your Highness?” Otabek asks mockingly. Yuri sticks his tongue at him. “No, no, don’t be mad! I’m serious. Your birthday’s coming up, right? I won’t mind giving you my music as a gift.”

Yuri relents. “Alright, but seriously, no more surprise hidden talents.”

Otabek smirks. “No promises.”

-

As Worlds rolls close, the frequency of their Skype calls starts to wind down. It doesn't bother Yuri at all. Nope. Not _at all_. Really, he has his own work to do—getting his body up to the level he was when he got injured, regaining his balance and flexibility, and try not to fall every jump like a baby tossed on the ice for the first time. It doesn’t help that he seems to gain an extra ten inches since his last season, and his gangly legs feel so foreign and unmanageable on ice.

It’s humiliating, seeing the pity present in Mila when he meets her eyes, the whispers junior skaters share between each other, but Yuri refuses to give in and ask Yakov to move him to a smaller, private rink in the facility. He grits his teeth and keeps on trying.

Now retired, married and living with a dog and Victor, also known the human version of a headache, Yuuri enrolls himself as a coach and immediately takes Yuri under his wing. Victor isn’t officially listed as a coach at the rink, but he remains Yakov’s favorite apprentice even after retiring, so he gets to do what he wants. Lilia is still his ballet instructor, but Yuri trains more often with Yuuri—or _Coach Katsuki_ —these days.

It takes Yuri four days to realize that the confident skater Yuuri puts on is not a façade. Rather, he is a multi-faceted person with layer underneath layer, and Yuri can’t, for the love of Aphrodite, figure out how many layers are buried underneath him. Though their dynamic doesn’t shift all that much (meaning Yuri yells at Yuuri and Yuuri sighs self-indulgently), there are things Yuri does that he didn’t use to do before, like yelling back at Yuri whenever Yuri yells at him in increasingly inappropriate Russian cuss words. He thinks Yuuri is trying to balance out the fact that Yuri swears enough for ten people.

Yuuri’s style of coaching is similar with Yakov in the sense that he won’t let Yuri rest until he gets every single detail right. He is strict without being unkind, thorough without pushing Yuri past his limits, minding his injured knee respectfully.

He’s also probably committed to have Yuri six feet under ten years earlier. Yuri is red-faced and bone-deep tired after every session, a sensation that he hasn’t felt in a long time since he was thirteen. Every day is discovering new ways to tame his body only to have to do it all over again by the time the sun rises the next day. It’s a never-ending loop of falling apart and putting himself together, and in between nursing his bruises, cursing himself for being a late bloomer, and getting destroyed by Katsuki Yuuri, Yuri has absolutely zero time to check his phone every hour for any new texts from Otabek, or any news at all.

He definitely doesn’t cave in after three days of radio silence and googles Otabek’s name, just to see if there are any news of him being found dead on the ice. Definitely not. He is a professional figure skater with the training from hell hot on his trails. He has no time to be thinking of a certain other skater, even if said skater is his only best friend. So when it’s break time, Yuri definitely doesn’t pull out his phone to scroll through Otabek’s one and only post on Instagram, wishing that it would magically conjure up a dozen more posts.

Yuri sighs. Otabek’s status on Skype remains stubbornly offline. He balances his phone on his thigh, downing a large bottle of water as the screen of his phone screen goes dark. The rink in front of him is still occupied by Mila and Victor, going through the last parts of her short program. Yakov assigns Yuuri to him and Victor to Mila, probably /for good reasons because Yuri would have buried Victor alive within the first day.

Victor perks up visibly when he sees Yuuri skating past, and hurries to catch up to him. Yuuri smiles when he sees Victor, squeezing his gloved hand gently before skating off to the side. He unlaces his skates expertly and sets them next to the bench Yuri’s sitting on.

"You're a little bit distracted," Yuuri observes.

Yuri immediately pockets his phone, denial on the tips of his tongue, then— _oh_ , yeah, okay, Yuuri has a point. Still, he grits his teeth and says, "No, I'm not."

"Is your knee bothering you?" Yuuri asks, looking at him sharply.

"No!" Yuri shakes his head vigorously. He is being truthful—well, this time.  Yuri had tried to lie before, and Yuuri—no, Coach Katsuki—had gotten that scary-intimidating look on his face and told him exactly how early his career could end if he keeps lying.

Coach Katsuki—fuck it, he's still Katsudon in his eyes, what the hell—narrows his eyes. "Then there's no reason you for you sit on the bench looking sadly at your phone like someone just kicked your cat when your triple axel is barely passable."

Yuri couldn’t believe that those exact words had come out of Yuuri’s mouth at first. Meek, kind Yuuri saying anything borderline mean is unheard of. Yet here he is, gaping at austere-faced Yuuri, humorless and absolutely serious.

Yuri stands up, satisfied to see that he almost towers over Yuuri.

"SHUT UP, KATSUDON," Yuri yells. Katsudon should feel damn lucky that he's not currently holding anything, because he would have hurled it at his ugly face. He jabs the older man on his chest forcefully and yells, "I AM TRYING MY DAMN HARDEST, YOU _ASSHOLE_ , IT'S NOT MY FAULT I HAD A SECOND GROWTH SPURT EVEN THOUGH I'M ALMOST SEVENTEEN AND MY LIMBS FEEL AS USEFUL AS NOODLES."

Yuri’s pretty sure he hears a camera phone go off. It’s probably Mila.

Katsudon doesn't budge even a millimeter. "Then what are you doing now, mooning over your phone like a pathetic loser?”

Yuri reels back like he's been punched, and launches himself on the ice angrily. If Victor were his coach, this wouldn’t have come as a surprise. But Yuri never expects to feel so… belittled under Yuuri Katsuki’s words, kind and good Yuuri Katsuki who, more or less, intrigued him to the point where he won a gold just to keep him from retiring. His blades feel like knife under his feet, and his rage bleeds onto the ice as he prepares himself for a jump—

He nails his triple axel for the first time since his injury.

He hears a resounding "yes!" coming from somewhere in his left, and whips his head around to see Katsudon skating towards him excitedly, hands spread wide like he's about to—oh, fuck. Here it comes. The big damn hug.

Yuuri wraps his arms around his shoulders and lifts him off his feet, because it doesn't matter than Yuri has easily three inches on him now, Yuuri remains a cuddle monster.

"I'm still pissed at you for calling me pathetic, you ass," Yuri says, cheeks squished against Yuuri's neck and arm.

Yuuri laughs openly, and releases him immediately. "Come on, let's go over it one more time.”

-

Grandpa's house is a one hour drive away from his rink in St. Petersburg. When Yuri decided to move to St. Petersburg from Moscow, Grandpa simultaneously sold his childhood manor to purchase a smaller, two-bedroom house in the rural part of St. Petersburg. It’s the hardest decision Yuri had ever let his grandpa made, and it’s the only thing that he would admit he’d cried over.

Victor usually drives him, with his over-the-top pink convertible (who the fuck has convertibles in Russia? _Victor Nikiforov_ ), bugging him to rap along to Nicki Minaj’s Monster. However, with the training now in full-swing, Victor has his hands full with Mila, and since Yuuri doesn't have a license, Yuri has no other choice but to take the train, which is not ideal when he's had a rough day at training.

Lilia suggests that Yuri stay in her empty apartment. It's five minutes away on foot, full-furnished, and usually stocked with vodka. And it has wifi, the greatest invention of humankind. Yuri is instantly in love, then considers if he can spare more money to pay for rent.

Lilia is straight up offended when Yuri brings up the matter of lease to her, and declares indignantly that she doesn't take money from little brats, which Yakov assures Yuri is her own way of saying she cares for Yuri like her own child. Yuri is grateful, but can't help wondering furiously why he always ends up being the one getting adopted.

These days, it's where Yuri spends the night.

Living alone gives him more privacy, not that his grandpa doesn't. He knows when to leave Yuri alone, when to let Yuri work through his problems on his own, little things that Yuri is eternally grateful for. Sometimes, though, it can be challenging to unwind when someone else is in the other room, watching late night shows. Yuri, for someone so outspoken, regards silence with a massive relief. The quiet is hard to come by, when he spends nearly seven hours a day on a busy ice rink.

It's a good perk, but on a night such as this, he wishes he was home, with grandpa cooking late dinner in the kitchen and making him hot chocolate.

Yuri knows how to cook. Grandpa is very adamant about teaching him, getting him to help him around since he was five, telling him that it's an important life skill. Yuri used to complain, as a child, that it's a girl's work, and Grandpa would shake his head and tell him to keep cutting the potatoes. It's one of those things that don't make sense to you as a kid, one of those things that, patiently, adults will tell children, "you'll understand when you get older."

Looking back, Yuri is glad for Grandpa's cooking lessons. Cooking is indeed a necessary life-skill, and Yuri learns the importance of it whenever he comes over to Yuuri and Victor's apartment (much to his disbelief) to see Victor annihilating the entire kitchen trying to replicate the Katsukis' authentic katsudon recipe.

On nights that he's not too tired, he cooks in the meticulous kitchen of Lilia's apartment. It's a good way of relaxing, the sizzle of meat on the pan and the sound of boiling broth almost therapeutic.

Still, as much as he loves it, cooking takes energy. After landing his first triple axel in months, Yuri is both mentally and physically worn out, and cannot bring himself to even boil water for instant ramen. It’s probably for his own good; Lilia will add an extra gym hour if she finds out he even considers ramen as a suitable dinner.

Yuri's face hits the pillow and he immediately drifts off to sleep, sweaty clothes and shoes still on. Absently, he knows that he will feel gross in the morning, but his tired muscles protest when he tries to get up, and in the end, the mighty ice tiger is simply human.

He jostles awake when he hears a creak at the door, self-preservation instincts kicking in. He runs to the door, ready to clock a robber in the face with his fists (for interrupting his sleep! The fuck!), and sags with relief when he sees Katsudon behind the door, wide-eyed and bewildered.

"Nobody taught you how to knock?" Yuri snaps. His voice is scratchy from the sleep he's been so rudely jerked out of.

Yuuri brandishes the key he used to open the door. "S-sorry! Lilia gave me the key, told me to check up on you," the Japanese stutters. Yuri is perplexed yet again by how puzzling Katsuki Yuuri is. How is this scared-y cat the same person who insulted him just hours before, at the rink?

Speaking of hours. Yuri glances at the huge, antique grandfather clock in the living room. It's ten pm, which means he's slept for about twenty minutes.

He hears the rustle of plastic, and looks back at his coach. "I, um, I brought dinner?" he says, holding the plastic bag in front of his face. The unmistakable smell of katsudon wafts through the air, and his stomach groans in appreciation. Yuri realizes that he's starving.

"Well, then what are you doing, standing there like an idiot?" Yuri says petulantly. "The kitchen's that way."

-

The katsudon tastes amazing, though even hard-boiled eggs would taste like a five-star meal at the state of hunger he's in. Yuri is not ashamed at how fast he devours it.

"If I didn't know that katsudon is the only thing you know how to cook, I would've thought you're a good cook," Yuri says in between bites. Lilia doesn’t keep chopsticks in her kitchen arsenal, so they’ve settled for spoons and forks.

Katsudon laughs. He actually covers his mouth when he laughs. He’s about the only person Yuri knows to do that. "That's what Victor thought. After three days, he realizes that it's my only specialty and decides to cook himself."

Yuri snorts. "How many kitchen utensils were burned?"

"About a dozen,” Katsudon snickers.

Yuri shakes his head, exasperated. It’s practically insulting how helpless Victor is in the kitchen. For someone who’s lived alone since the age of ten, Victor is unbelievably useless when it comes to household chores. Yuri won’t be surprised if he’s never eaten anything homemade until the katsudon at Yu-topia. "You should try spaghetti,” Yuri suggests. “It’s easy to cook. If you want the easy way, you can buy one of those ready-to-eat packages from the market, but honestly you'd be doing a great crime to the world of culinary everywhere."

"I'm allergic to tomatoes,” Yuuri says.

"Like, for real?" Yuri gapes. "You were rid of the most wonderful things in life."

"Not really," Yuuri says. "I had pizza with pineapples, so I've basically discovered heaven. Also, truffles beat everything."

Yuri scrunches up his nose. Fruits do not belong on pizza, and he tells Yuuri as much. "The hell? You like pineapples on pizza? What kind of monster are you?"

 "The kind who still has his liver intact after a dozen flutes of champagne, apparently,” Yuuri jokes. He’s gotten less horrified at that fact and acted more amused at the mention of the Banquet since he started living with Victor.

Yuri makes a face at the memory. "Don't remind me of the Banquet."

Yuuri grins unabashedly. "Afraid to get your ass handed to you in a dance battle again?"

"Alright, watch your mouth,” Yuri points at the Japanese’s chest with his fork, “I can throw you out if I want."

After dinner, Yuuri orders him take a shower while he washes the dishes. When Yuri emerges, hair dripping water on his shoulder, a clean t-shirt and pajama bottoms on, Yuuri is lounging in the living room, watching TV with a bowl of ice cream.

"Not holding back now that you retired, huh?" Yuri says. He tries to ignore how bitter that word feels on his tongue—retired.

"Want some?" Yuuri asks. "I know you're not supposed to, but I'm your coach and I allow you, like, three spoons."

Yuri shakes his head. "I'd rather not have Lilia kill me.”

Yuuri shrugs. "Suit yourself."

With a moment's hesitation, he plops himself down next to Yuuri.

"Yurio," Yuuri suddenly says. "I didn't mean anything that I said earlier at the rink, okay? I know how hard you've worked. It wasn’t fair for me to say you have been slacking just because you haven’t succeeded in landing any jumps. Puberty is super troublesome, I know.”

With his baby-face? Yuri wouldn’t have thought.

“If you’re going to tell me you’re proud of me, I would actually barf all over this sofa,” Yuri threatens. Something in heart traitorously swells at the smile Yuri sends his way. Yuri crosses his arms in front of his chest, looking away. “Is that why you brought me katsudon?”

"Victor and I made it a tradition to eat katsudon whenever we both accomplished something," Yuuri explains. "You did well with your triple axel today, and I want to reward you."

"You know that I'm not actually your son, right?" Yuri grumbles. “Why am I always babied? There are junior skaters four years younger than me at the rink!”

Yuuri shovels the ice cream into his mouth, pinches his chin like he’s thinking hard. "You're more like a little brother to me."

"Oh, hell, I don't want to be related to you in any way,” Yuri promptly scoots away to the other end of a couch.

Yuuri chuckles. "Still, don't take it to heart, okay? You’d hate it if I tell you, but I was actually... testing a theory."

Yuri sits up straight. "You were... experimenting on me?"

Yuuri grimaces. "Alright, when you put it that way, it sounds way worse. I just—noticed that you become very motivated when you're angry about something. Like when you broke Victor's record in 2014, you were mad that your grandpa couldn't make it to the competition. In 2015, a personal best because you were pissed at Victor. Today, you nailed your triple axel because I called you pathetic."

"You know that it requires at least three incidents before you can conduct a scientific experiment, right? You know, one is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern,” Yuri says, reciting what his science teacher taught him.

Yuuri smirks. "Glad to see you paid attention at school, Yurio.”

Yuri smacks him across the head with a cushion. "Shut up, you pig."

Yuuri dodges him expertly, extending his arms to put the bowl of half-melted ice cream away from Yurio’s reach. "No! Don't do that! The ice cream!"

"Who cares about the ice cream!"

"I care!" Yuuri shrieks.

Yuri scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest, cheeks puffed out. Yuuri puts the cushion between them, like a barrier. As if that stops Yuri from kicking him. Carefully, Yuuri places the bowl of ice cream on his lap. Yuri glares at him, considering if knocking over his precious ice cream bowl would be worth the reaction he’d incite out of Yuuri when he has to clean it up himself in the end.

Before Yuri can make a decision, Yuuri speaks up again. "Yurio, have you ever thought of making love your motivation instead?"

Yuri makes a pained sound in the back of his head. Is the pig serious? "Dear Aphrodite, go home, pig."

Yuuri searches his eyes. "I'm serious. Anger is not reliable. It comes and goes.”

No, it doesn’t, Yuri wants to tell him, but Yuuri beats him to it. “What happens when you can’t find anger? It’s not ever-present, but love—love is reliable. It’s not ephemeral, you know. You can count on it.”

Yuri almost laughs at how ridiculous Yuuri sounds. "I skated to Agape last year, Yuuri, I think I know plenty when it comes to love."

"Yet anger is still what motivates you."

“By Aphrodite’s name—what the fuck do you want?” Yuri can’t help but shout. “So what if it’s my motivation? I still won gold, didn’t I? Why are you complaining?”

Yuuri doesn't understand, and there's no reason why he would. He grew up surrounded by love, parents who married because they're Soulmates, parents who fell in love, a sister and a ballet teacher who willingly flew out to foreign countries just to see their baby brother perform in a competition that's not even the most important event in a season. The entire population of Hasetsu loves him. Phichit adores him to death, and so do his millions of followers of Instagram, probably.

Victor met him when he was on his worst—a major defeat at the Grand Prix Final, drunk off his ass on sixteen flutes of champagne, half-naked, and slurring his words. Hell, Yuuri hadn't even realized that his timer had gone off. Yet Victor fell for him anyway, and tossed away his career so mindlessly after one video that wasn't supposed to go online, put everything on the line in the name of love.

It’s offensive that Yuuri would even suggest it. Yuuri doesn't understand that for Yuri, anger is easier to find, always in the back of his mind like a bad childhood memory, like the cold touch of his distant mother's lips on his forehead, so long forgotten, so long buried in the darkest parts of his brain. Anger was there when his father came home swinging his bottle at the wall, anger was there when his mother left him to face his father’s wrath to marry an old, rich guy, anger was there when he found his father unbreathing on the blood-soaked carpet, anger was there when his grandpa picked him up and took him in, and it took years until that anger dissipated in the warmth of Grandpa’s embrace.

It resurfaced when his timer went zero, clawing at his heart at the realization that he, out of eight billion people in the world, doesn’t have a Soulmate. Since then, anger stays under his skin like an itch he can never rub off. Anger overpowers happiness when he sees Victor and Yuuri, or Mila and Sara, or Phichit and Seung-gil, and he’s angry at Leo, for abandoning his own Soulmate for his own selfish desire. For his illicit affair with _Guang Hong_. He’s angry that he can never escape the topic of Soulmates even when he’s working—the ice is his occupation, it had been since his first competition—that Otabek looks at his timer so reverently, that Otabek isn’t fucking answer his texts.

Yuri doesn't seek out love because anger has always been easier to find, and Yuuri doesn’t get it.

Rather than a stab wound, the flash of wedding ring around Yuuri’s finger feels like a million little papercuts.

Yuri's done crying himself to sleep, praying to Aphrodite to forgive him, though he knows he never did anything wrong. So pity turns to resentment.

Yuuri backtracks. “That’s not what I meant, Yurio—“

"It's easy for you to say," Yuri cuts him off. His voice shakes with how much anger burns underneath. He'll blame it simply on puberty later, when he gets a chance to reflect on what he’s done and proceeds to die from the embarrassment of oversharing. "You have love all around you, everyone and their mother in Japan fucking loves you, you—you have no right to tell me I have to find love when this fucking timer told me I'll never find it. Your timer went off and you found Victor. My timer went off and I didn't find anyone. I don't have a Soulmate, Yuuri, how the fuck am I going to find love?"

Yuuri’s mouth hangs open. It’s obvious that he didn’t expect Yuri to have a meltdown like that. Fuck, now Yuri feels so inadequate. Yuuri sets down his bowl slowly, as if he’s afraid of making a sound. "Yurio,” he starts, and here come the apologies, Yuri thinks. “I’m so sorry—“

"Stop apolozing,” Yuri snaps.

“Sor—“ Yuuri catches himself. He hesitantly puts his hand on Yuri’s knee. Yuri jerks his hand off, and pulls his knees close to his chest, refusing to meet Yuuri’s eyes. He hears Yuuri sigh. "There's so much love around you, Yurio. Your grandpa, Yakov, Lilia, Mila—me and Victor, Otabek, we all love you. You're wrong if you think you're not surrounded by love."

Yuri doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about the shift in his chest when he thinks about Yuuri’s words. What does it matter, anyway, when none of them has a timer to match his? He winds his arms around his knees. “I can’t,” he puts his forehead on his knees, “I told you, anger is easier.”

"Then find a place, somewhere between rage and serenity,” Yuuri says resolutely.

Yuri laughs. “I don’t even know what serenity is.”

Yuuri has nothing to reply to that, so he continues eating his ice cream in silence.

-

Despite making great progress, he doesn't make it to Worlds. That means Yuri will have no choice but to wait for the next season to make a comeback. Again, it’s not ideal, and as much as he wants to disobey his coach, he knows he can’t go to the ice with the state that he’s in. He’ll be humiliating the entirety of Russia, and possibly the sport of figure skating. It pains him to admit, but his body is transforming in ways that he can’t yet control, and he needs more time to relearn it.

Yuuri texts him livestreaming links and about a dozen emojis. Yuri purposefully ignores it before he realizes he has to watch Otabek perform. Yuri expects him to win an easy gold; his only real threat is JJ, and it's not even his skill, but his tendency to rob Otabek blind. Besides, Otabek beats JJ by a wide margin at Four Continents, bringing home gold for his country. JJ goes home shamefully with a silver and his tail beteeen his legs. Meanwhile, Phichit, finishing third, throws a party and posts about a dozen pictures of Seung-gil wearing his gold medal like the lovesick fool he is. It's truly a study in perspective. He also keeps posting pictures of hamster hats with cryptic captions, which Yuri supposes is his own way of hinting people at his ice show project, Phichit on Ice.

Yuri is positive a repeat of Four Continents will happen again at Worlds. If not the exact same order of the podium, then Otabek winning gold, because he has to.

Otabek hasn’t contacted him in almost three weeks now. Their last conversation is of Otabek telling Yuri he’s so damn tired, he will completely and utterly die in a minute, and then nothing. The only indication that Otabek isn’t actually dead, just being overdramatic as per usual, is the double checklist sign near his speech bubble that confirms that Otabek has read his text, just hasn’t answered. Yet. It bothers Yuri more than it should, so Yuri keeps sending him stupid posts on Instagram and Snapchats his misadventures training under Katsuki, even when Otabek never opens them.

Because he can't be here physically to yell davai at Otabek, he sends Otabek a Snapchat video of him yelling, "Davai!" at the top of his lungs. The red arrow almost instantly turns white; a sign that Otabek has received and seen Yuri's message. Yuri sits up straight, excited beyond belief to finally hear from Otabek.

Otabek sends him a thumbs-up emoji in reply.

Otabek still wears his ugly short program costume. Yuri tweets, someone needs to burn that faux pirate costume, not caring if it pisses Otabek off because the asshole deserves it for the unannounced radio silence. Through the entire program, Yuri texts him his thoughts and comments on the program, and doesn't even feel a little bit embarrassed at the twenty-something messages he's spammed Otabek's phone with. Otabek finishes at third after the short program, after—Yuri hisses in disgust—JJ and Chris, followed by Phichit and Seung-gil.

Otabek replies his texts— fucking finally—when Yuri's about to fall asleep.

_Sorry, just had a chance to reply._

_Don't you ever worry about your phone bills?_

Yuri scoffs. _Bitch, I made my own money_

Yuri sees three dots on his screen, a sign that Otabek is typing out a reply, then they’re gone. Yuri huffs. Otabek is so busy these days. Yuri is mad, but he also knows his anger is irrational. Otabek is at the peak of his career, winning medals left and right. He must be swamped with meetings with potential sponsors, on top of his usual deadly schedule of practice and interviews and photoshoots and party appearances. It’s understandable that Otabek is too busy to check his phone, and with the added timezone, Yuri should, out of everyone, understand how difficult it must be for Otabek to manage his time.

Yuri sighs. He’s getting tired, and he has practice tomorrow. Maybe the only way to bridge their distance is to keep himself on the same level of busyness as Otabek. That way, he won’t be obsessively looking at his phone every hour for a reply.

 _Good luck on your free skate tomorrow_ , he types, and falls asleep.

-

He feels strange when he wakes up. It’s an unpleasant sensation under his skin, like something is crawling up his bloodstreams. He accidentally drops his bowl when getting cereal and barely misses getting punctured by the shards. He exchanges his bowl for a plastic one and eats out in the balcony, thinking that maybe he just needs some fresh air. Crows fly up above, a rare sight, and he angles his phone to take a picture, only to find it out of battery. Oh well.

That aura of strangeness keeps following him, even when he arrives at the rink. People stare. He inspects his face in the locker room—maybe he’s grown another two monster pimples—and finds nothing out of the ordinary, except for the length of his hair. But people couldn’t be talking about his hair; Victor had his down past his butt. His hair shouldn’t be weird.

He figures he’s just exhausted. He did, after all, stay up to livestream Worlds yesterday. Otabek must be starting his free skate by now. Mila always records the livestreams; he’ll bug her for the link later.

There's a stricken look on Mila's face when Yuri skates to Katsudon, already waiting on the ice with an expression that mirrors hers. Yuri frowns. Maybe people truly hate his hair.

"Yurio..." she says.

"What is it?" Yuri demands. The strange feeling is gone, but now it’s replaced by terror, seeping into his bones like poison. Mila wordlessly shows him an article on her phone.

"I'm so sorry," Mila says.

Yuri can pinpoint exactly when his world crumbles.

Mila pulls him into her arms before his legs give out. For a brief moment, the world narrows down to the ringing in his ears. There's nobody at the rink, there's no medal to be won, there's no competition. He closes his eyes and hears the rumble of a motorcycle, laughter that doesn't come easy, a song that sends him to sleep.

Then the ringing stops.

Suddenly, everything becomes too much. Voices become too loud. Everything around him is blinding. Mila still has her arms around him, whispering lies into his hair, whispering empty promises.

Yuri wants to scream, wants to chuck Mila's blasted phone at the nearest wall, wants to go to Boston and wreck every single incompetent referee and medic—

He pushes his face into the crook of Mila's neck and wails.

-

**OTABEK ALTIN SUFFERS A MIGHTY DEFEAT AFTER A TERRIFYING CRASH**

11.23 AM | Olivia Wu

This year’s Four Continents champion Otabek Altin and silver medalist Jean-Jacques Leroy were expected to battle in this year's World Championship, but the two collided hard during warm-ups (3/29), leaving both with visible injuries.

Altin was skating backwards at full-speed when he collided with Leroy, leaving both lying on the ice for several minutes. Leroy was able to get himself off ice to seek immediate medical attention, but Altin was knocked unconscious.

Despite the injuries, both refrained from withdrawing. Altin finished last after failing to land three out of the four quads he landed, and Leroy came in seventh. Altin was limping to the Kiss and Cry before he fell unconscious again. Christophe Giacometti, launched from his previous third rank after the free program to first, became the World Champion.

He dropped the following statement at his press conference: “My victory today is only because my dear two friends were badly injured; had it not been the case, the competition would’ve been so much different.” Silver medalist Phichit Chulanont also echoed his statement on an Instagram post.

America’s Leo de la Iglesia, a known close friend of Altin, had also taken to social media to give a statement regarding the accident. He tweeted, ‘Please respect both JJ and Otabek’s privacy. They need our support and prayers more than ever.’

Isabella Yang, Leroy’s fiancé and Soulmate, was notably silent on all platforms of social media.

Altin and Leroy are currently being kept overnight in a local hospital in Boston, it has been reported.

-

Yuri’s always wanted to visit America. He grows up watching Hollywood movies, like many children with a cable TV, and has always thought of America as the land of dreams. He’s been there when he’s assigned to Skate America in his junior skating career, but being there as a tourist feels infinitely different than being there as a competing athlete. He wants to go there on his own, one day, visit friends that he makes in figure skating, go sight-seeing.

He's doing all that now, just not in the circumstances that he never thought he would be in.

Last-minute ticket purchases are expensive, but Yuri barely even looked at the numbers. He packs his clothes in a daze, that strange cloud of knowing things aren’t a-okay, and unable to do something about it. Victor drives Yuri to the airport for the longest ride of his life. For the first time, Victor doesn’t play music, doesn’t try to initiate a conversation. Katsudon rides shotgun, Mila squeezed with him in the backseat, and no one makes a sound.

Mila sends him off to the boarding room with a hug. Her red hair is shoved haphazardly under a baseball cap, so as to not be recognizable. “Yakov will understand,” Mila says.

“I don’t care about Yakov,” Yuri says.

Mila smiles at him sadly. “Text me when you’ve landed.”

Twelve hours later, he’s in cab in Almaty, watching trees and buildings and people blur past him as the drive takes him to where Otabek is.

Yuri hates hospitals. The smell of death envelops the smell of antiseptic. The pristine white walls and the pristine white floor hurt his eyes. Nurses smile way too wide and doctors scurry past without a care in the world. He can’t stop seeing blood-red against the white shirt that his father was wearing when he found him dead in the kitchen, and he squashes down the image of Otabek’s white free program costume tainted with blood.

God. He should’ve asked someone to come. Hell, even Victor’s overly joyful presence would help him a lot right now.

He doesn’t know where Otabek’s room is. He wants to ask the receptionist, but his English is heavily accented and terrible, and he hates people. God, why are Americans so loud? He hates this. He hates JJ, for crashing into Otabek, his best friend for being a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to stop even if Yuri spells it out, he hates distance for separating them, he hates his fucked-up knee and his missing out of Worlds.

Maybe if he were there he could—

He almost topples over when someone bumps into him. That someone immediately apologizes. Yuri looks up, miffed, to find an Asian-Canadian woman staring back at him. Isabella Yang, hair a mess and dress rumpled, looking like she hasn’t slept in a year.

“Yuri,” she says.

Rage suddenly conquers him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Excuse me?” Isabelle says indignantly.

“Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating with your dumb husband?” Yuri snarls.

“ _Excuse me_?” Isabella huffs. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Your precious JJ succeeded in taking out his biggest competition of the season. Made him lose big time, too,” Yuri says. “Tell him congratulations on a plan well executed.”

Isabella’s eyes well up with angry tears. “You think JJ did this on purpose?”

“He crashed into Otabek. Anyone with eyes can see it. It’s recorded and broadcasted everywhere,” Yuri spits out. “So, yeah, tell him, in the process of killing Otabek’s career, he also has killed his!”

Isabella takes one step forward and slaps him across the face.

“What the fuck—“ Yuri splutters.

“How dare you!” Isabella yells. By now, people have started to gather around them, whispering warily. Nurses hurry over to where they are, but Isabella doesn’t seem to care that they’re making a scene. “If you had eyes, or even an ounce of conscience, you would know that JJ was badly hurt, too. I felt it,” Isabella clutches her chest, “Right down in here.”

“Who cares about what you felt—“

“I care!” Isabella barks, her fists balled at her sides. Tears well up in her eyes. “Do you know what happens when your Soulmate dies, and you’re not there?” It’s probably meant to be a rhetoric, but Isabella tilts her head, mouth turning into an ugly, angry curve. “Right, you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know because you don’t have a Soulmate. You’re heartless—that’s why you’re so angry, there’s no room in your heart for love. You don’t know love, and you never will, you son of a—“

“Isabella,” comes a voice that Yuri hates so much.

Isabella’s head whips around. JJ, in a wheelchair, is just a few feet away behind her, and she bridges that gap in three wide strides that transition into running at the end, hugging him close. She cries into his shoulders, sobs wrecking her lithe frame. JJ rubs her hair and kisses her just behind her ear. He has a bandage wrapped around his forehead.

“Yuri,” JJ says once Isabella’s released him. There’s no way he hadn’t overheard his fight with Isabella. Yuri braces himself for another barrage of insults, of how he is a monster incapable of love, but JJ only nods politely at him. “Otabek is in room 317.”

-

Otabek is, blessedly, awake.

“Yuri,” he says, like he couldn’t quite believe it. “Hi—how—when did you—“

"You were limping to the Kiss and Cry," Yuri says, "and then you passed out."

"I finished last," Otabek says, like it fucking matters when Yuri saw the blood dripping from his chin and onto the ice, a stark shocking red against the translucent-white ice.

"I don't care that you finished last!" Yuri yells. He doesn't notice Otabek flinching from the volume. He grabs Otabek's shoulders and squeezes tightly. He hopes it can convey everything he's feeling right now: relief that Otabek is alive and will recover in no time, anger at fucking JJ, fear of Otabek not making it, leaving him like his parents did, worry, love. "When I heard you got injured, I..."

"I'm okay," Otabek reassures him.

Yuri stares at the cut on his chin and the gauze around his head and laughs mirthlessly. "Fucking say that to the five stitches on your skin," he grumbles.

"Yuri."

"That asshole JJ robbed you twice. First when he robbed you of your bronze in Barcelona, and now—this!"

"Yuri."

"He fucking planned it, I knew it. He couldn't let his loser self suffer alone, so he has to drag you down with him. That fuck—"

"Yuri!"

Otabek raising his voice is as rare as a spotted unicorn. Yuri immediately shuts up. He looks up to see Otabek staring at him with that unreadable look again. So it's not enough that Otabek has to be a cryptic ass, Yuri has to suffer from trying to interpret what his damn look means.

“Can you,” Otabek coughs. “In the bag on the sofa, there’s a gift for you.”

It’s so unexpected, that it takes a few minutes for the words to sink it. Obediently, Yuri rummages through Otabek’s bag. “It’s a small red box,” Otabek describes, and Yuri finds it easily. Among the black hoodies and black everything, the red box stands our starkly like a pimple. Yuri brings it over to Otabek’s bed. “Open it,” the older boy encourages.

Yuri opens the box to find a new pair of earphones and a mixtape CD inside. “Oh,” he says, remembering his request back in February. “The mixtape… I even forgot about it.” He always forgets his birthday. It’s not a big thing in his household, so he grows up never really celebrating it. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” Otabek says.

Yuri can’t help the warmth in his eyes. He comes here to visit an injured Otabek, yet he’s the one with his dam breaking. “’S okay,” he mumbles. “I love it already.”

“Yeah? What if I told you I put nothing but Careless Whisper in it?”

“Otabek, no.”

“And Never Gonna Give You Up?”

Yuri smothers him—gently, very gently—with a throw pillow. “You wouldn’t dare.”

"I'm tired," Otabek mumbles, falling back to the pillow as if conversing with Yuri takes up all of his energy. "Stay?"

Yuri shakes his head. "You don't need to ask, idiot," he says. He takes Otabek's hand before he loses his guts. Otabek smiles, and fits his fingers in between Yuri's.

"Go to sleep," Yuri says, softly this time.

Otabek must've wanted to reply, but the painkillers took over and his eyes flutter shut.

It's way well into the night when Yuri realizes Otabek hasn't let go of his hand.

-

Otabek’s family barges into his room the next morning in a flurry of winter coats and rapid-fire Russian, peppering kisses on his cheeks and showing him how worried they are. Yuri stands awkwardly at the door, clutching a vending machine issued coffee, uncertain if he should introduce himself or slowly remove himself from the premises. Otabek’s face is flushed, despite his darker complexion, clearly enjoying the attention, but embarrassed all the same.

“We came as fast as we could,” the oldest woman in the room, presumably Otabek’s mother, says. “But I had an operation yesterday and you know I couldn’t leave it.”

“It’s okay, Mom, I’m fine,” Otabek says.

A woman of otherworldly beauty—who is Yuri kidding, they are all of otherworldly beauty—smacks him lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, like hell you are! You fainted at the Kiss and Cry! And now you’re hospitalized! You need to up your standards for ‘fine,’ little brother, or the next day you pull this kind of shit again, I’m going to have to kick your ass.”

“Sabina, language,” the other woman in the room says. She has a headscarf on.

“Shut up, Katya,” Sabina says.

“Let’s not fight in front of your very sick, very injured brother, okay?” the man who could only be Otabek’s father interrupts. “How are you feeling? You know what, we should move you to a hospital in Almaty. Yeruslan will take better care of you than this sleazy American hospital. Let me get in a word with your doctor—“

“Mom and dad,” Otabek interjects, “and my beloved sisters,” this one’s clearly sarcastic, “I promise you, I feel better.”

Otabek’s mother takes his hand in hers, and pulls it to his chest. Her sleeves slide down in the process, revealing an old-fashioned timer wrapped around her wrist, showing nothing but zeroes, much like Yuri’s. They all wear their timers on their wrist, the traditional way, Yuri notes. “You never gave us a break, Otabek.”

“Oh,” Sabina’s eyes catch Yuri’s. “Otabek, how rude of you to not introduce your friend!”

Yuri’s torso becomes rigid. Suddenly, four pairs of beautiful dark eyes are trained on him, and Yuri finds himself gulping nervously under the scrutiny. Is this how being intimidated feels like? Yuri does not like it one bit. “Um,” he says. “Hi.”

“Yuri, Mom, Dad, Sabina—“

“Hi!” Sabina waves excitedly.

“—and Katya,” Otabek makes a face at Sabina. “Everyone, this is Yuri. He holds the current short program record.”

Sabina nods in understanding. “Oooh, _that_ Yuri—“ Otabek shots up so fast, Yuri’s scared he might get a whiplash, and clamps a hand over her mouth.

“Never mind what she said,” Otabek says in horror to Yuri.

“Sure,” Yuri says, not truly comprehending what’s happening. He is, statistically, terrible with parents. He has no idea how to respond to their kindness, like the Katsukis had been. His coffee is starting to burn his palm, so he switches it to the other hand.

Otabek’s mother smiles at him. Otabek looks, for the most part, like her. His darker complexion, his nose, his almond-shaped eyes that always seem to be searching for an answer. His nose is his father’s, as well his scowling mouth. “Hello,” she greets politely. “Were you also competing?”

“Um, no,” he shakes his head.

“Oh?” Mrs. Altin’s eyebrows raise.

“No, I was in St. Petersburg. Training. I had to sit out this season because of an injury,” Yuri explains.

“Wow, that’s true friendship right there,” Sabina remarks.

“I, um,” Yuri stutters.

“Thank you for keeping him company,” Mr. Altin says. His straight face mirrors Otabek’s default expression.

“It’s nothing, really,” Yuri says.

“Assuming you flew immediately after you heard the news, you must’ve purchased the tickets only a handful hours prior to boarding. It must’ve cost a fortune,” Katya analyzes. Between Sabina and her, she looks more like Otabek. Sabina has lighter skin, matching Mr. Altin, and always seems to be smiling. Katya is the exact opposite. “Seeing as even Tatyana couldn’t manage.”

Otabek’s face darkens at the mention of the name. “Let’s not talk about Tatyana,” he says. “Listen, I’m super hungry and I hate hospital food. Do you mind going out to buy me McDonald’s?”

“You’re an athlete; you don’t eat garbage,” Sabina says.

Otabek looks at her pointedly.

“Oh!” Sabina seems to get his meaning. She immediately ushers the rest of the family out. “Shoo, out we go! I haven’t been in Boston in a long time, I really wanted to go sightseeing!”

“There is, statistically, nothing to see here in Boston that we don’t see in Almaty,” Katya points out as Sabina shoves her out of the room. “And it is very unbecoming of you to shove your parents like this.”

“Later, Otabek!” Sabina yells out, and closes the door behind her.

Otabek sighs. “So sorry about them,” he says. “I didn’t know they’re coming.”

“They’re your family, of course they’d come,” Yuri says. It’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t touched his coffee. Now cold, he downs them in one go. He almost chokes at how terrible it is. Cardboard would’ve gone way smoother. He wants to ask about Tatyana. Remembering the way Otabek reacts (badly), Yuri decides to file it for later.

After that, there’s really not much for Yuri to do. Otabek is released two days later to be transferred to a local hospital in Almaty (that Mr. Altin claims is much better than any health institution in America). Mrs. Altin insists to buy his plane ticket, no matter how vigilant Yuri declines, and on Monday, Yuri boards a plane back to St. Petersburg.

But not before he makes Otabek promise not to disappear online again. “I’ll send you my schedule, I promise,” Otabek says, “So we can arrange our Skype calls around the time we’re both free.”

“We have to be on the same level of busyness,” Yuri says. “But that doesn’t mean I forbid you from being busy! Like, if I have ten things to do today, and you only have four, you better find six more things so you don’t pine over the phone.”

“Me? Pining?” Otabek smirks. “Shouldn’t that be you?”

Distance is hell on friendship, but Yuri is positive they’ll manage.

-

In September, Victor barges into practice one day and drapes himself over Yuuri excitedly. “Yuuri!” Victor sing-songs, his mouth doing that stupid heart-shaped thing that makes Yuri want to kill him even more than usual, “I know who we should be for Halloween!”

“WE’RE PRACTICING, VICTOR,” Yuri yells. “AND IT’S SEPTEMBER!” Victor should be aware that the only reason why Yuri isn’t kicking him is because he’s wearing his skates. If that weren’t the case, Yuri would have kicked him a thousand times.

“Victor,” Yuuri says, deadpan, “I’m coaching Yurio.”

“Please, please, just take a look at this?” Victor pulls on the puppy-dog eyes, and Yuri could’ve sworn they actually sparkle. What the fuck.

Yuuri sighs, looking fondly up at his husband. He turns to Yuri. “Yurio, why don’t you work on that step sequence while I,” he glances at Victor’s shit-eating grin, “take care of this?”

Yuri stares at his coach in disbelief. “You’re abandoning me for a quickie?”

Yuuri splutters. “N-no! Totally! Absolutely not!” he denies, arms flailing vehemently. “Besides, you do need to improve your step sequence anyway!” He looks back and forth between his student and his husband, and gets a suggestive wink (Victor) and a mock-vomit (Yuri) in return. Yuuri slaps his hand over his forehead. “Seriously, Yurio, just improve your step sequence. And we haven’t even started working on your EX skate!”

Yuuri pushes Victor out of the rink. To Yuri’s absolute relief, they don’t stumble into the locker rooms. Though, rest assured, any flat surface should be good enough for them. God, they’re not even newlyweds anymore. How the hell are they eternally on the honeymoon phase?

Mila skates over to him. “Abandoned by your coach?”

“Always,” Yuri grumbles. “Why is Yakov trusting us with them? At this point we’re going to lose. Miserably.”

Mila shakes her head. “It’s like they never got over the Soulmate high.”

“Soulmate high?” Yuri inquires.

“Yeah, like when you meet your Soulmate and your endorphin levels shoot up to the sky and you feel so inhumanly jolly,” Mila explains. “With normal cases it usually stays for two months, tops.” Ah, another sensation in life that Yuri is never going to experience.

“Evidently, they are an abnormal case,” Yuri states. “Fuckin’ Halloween costumes.”

“It’s probably a code,” Mila agrees solemnly. “Speaking off Halloween! Isn’t Otabek’s a spooky baby?”

“That sounds so ridiculous, I’m changing his contact name to Spooky Baby,” Yuri declares. Otabek will despise it with the entirety of his being. From one of their scheduled Skype sessions, Yuri gathers that Otabek hates being reminded that his birthday is on Halloween. Sabina always finds excuses to turn his birthday parties to Halloween costume parties, and by the time she breaks out the booze, people would’ve forgotten what exactly they’re celebrating. It’s a valid reason, but the mental image of Otabek brooding in the corner in an over-the-top hero costume on his own birthday party is so amusing, Yuri can’t help but tease him about it.

“Did you think of a gift yet?” Mila asks, skating ahead of him.

Yuri easily catches up with her. “I got him a new helmet,” he says.

“But?” Mila prompts.

“I don’t know,” Yuri shrugs. “It just doesn’t seem thoughtful? I know he won’t hate it, but I just feel like it’s a gift that someone who only knew him for five seconds could give to him. I’ve known him longer than that.”

Mila pinches her chin. “What about new headphones? He DJs, doesn’t he?”

Yuri sighs. “Leo beat me to it, the asshole.”

“I’m sure he will like whatever you end up giving him,” Mila assures. “I hate cooking, but Sara took me to her grandma’s house in Rome to spend the whole day cooking for my birthday, and it’s the best experience I’ve ever had to date. It beats even the World championship gold!” she sighs contentedly at the memory. “What I’m saying is, it’s the thought that counts, you know? Sometimes the best gifts aren’t materialistic. Sometimes it’s simply a feeling. A special thing that only you two share. Like that time Sara and I went to Sicily and—“

“Dear Aphrodite, Victor is rubbing off on you,” Yuri shudders.

“What can I say!” Mila squeals. “I love Sara!”

Yuri skates far away from her to avoid hearing any heartsick lovestories. Everyone he knows is fucking in love, and he grows more repulsed by it every day that passes. And he thought Georgi was bad. Thank fuck Anya was just a false alarm and he found his actual Soulmate.

Although, what Mila says gets him thinking…

Sometimes it’s simply a feeling. Well, Yuri is fucking happy when he’s with Otabek. That much he knows. What makes Otabek happy?

Skating makes Otabek happy. Nailing all four of the quads he squeezes in his free program for this year’s season, the crazy bastard. Talking about making Kazakhstan proud, calling Yuri at four in the morning just to tell him he landed a quad axel, I fell down on the ice but I did it, I did the impossible, in a breathless voice, like he ran straight to the phone from the rink, so happy that Yuri can practically hear his smile. It seems that their whole dynamic is based on the fact that they both, more than anything, love skating. Yuri remembers what Otabek told him—you have the unforgettable eyes of a soldier—and wonders if Otabek would’ve noticed him at all if he didn’t start skating, didn’t start doing ballet as a result. Would Otabek still be his friend?

Yeah, no. Skating is the basic principle of their friendship. Without skating, Otabek wouldn’t have traveled to Russia. Wouldn’t have seen him at Yakov’s summer camp, wouldn’t have felt inspired to move to other rinks in different continents, different parts of the world, to finally meet him in Barcelona.

Oh.

Suddenly, it clicks.

Yuri skates to the side, haphazardly putting on his blade guards to run to his bag. He finds his iPod, the playlist that Otabek mixed for him downloaded into the card, and plugs his earphones into the jack. There’s one particular song that’s his favorite.

When Yuuri finds him, he tells his coach, “I know what to do for my EX skate.”

-

October rolls around, and with it, the assignments for the Grand Prix series  are announced. Yuri shares Skate America with Otabek, and his other assignment is the Rostelecom Cup, and Otabek’s Trophee de France. Skate America is the first event of the series, lasting from the 29th to 31st, and Yuri, for all that he pretends to be nonchalant, is nervous about his comeback. Russian child prodigies tend to burn out once they have reached puberty. It’s something that Yuri sees in his former fellow junior skaters, and he knows the press is riding on that theory, backing him to a corner, fueled by last season’s injury.

He browses the internet to distract himself, but it backfires when he finds tweets doubting his skills as a competitor. He writes a long angry rant only to delete it, feeling self-conscious and pissed off. He wants to see Otabek, but he won’t be arriving until tomorrow evening because his flight gets delayed. He doesn’t see Otabek until the public practice, looking ragged and incredibly jet-lagged, and decides that perhaps what Otabek needs the most is peace.

Just before his short program, Yuuri pulls him aside and hugs him. Yuri struggles in his embrace, but the Japanese is resilient. “I know you have a lot of things on your mind right now,” he starts, “which is why I want you to channel all of that nervous energy to your skating. Okay?”

“Okay,” Yuri mumbles, head buried in Yuuri’s chest. The latter is wearing a Team Russia jacket that fits just a little bit loose on him.

Yuri’s greeted with a roaring crowd when he steps into the ice. Otabek yells davai at the top of his lungs, hugging the bear plushie he always seems to get from fans. He doesn’t look as exhausted as he had been, though his eyes are still ringed with dark circles, but his smile is blinding, as if he’s over the moon at Yuri’s sole presence on the ice.

He gives Otabek a thumbs-up.

“Ladies and gentleman, representing Russia, Yuri Plisetsky!”

Yuri glides onto the ice, hands above him, catching the roars of the crowd. His heart is pounding agaist his ribcage, but the bone-chilling sensation is familiar. He closes his eyes and strikes his starting pose.

The music starts.

His theme this season is The Phoenix. His short program costume is black with a touch of sparkling blue on his sleeves, and the story that he’s telling is of death. His long hair is pulled back into a sleek high ponytail, and just a little dust of powder on his cheekbones, making him look ghostly. Yuuri is the one who pushes to renew his image. With his gangly legs and newfound muscles, he no longer fits the role of the Russian fairy. Yuri wants to be the soldier Otabek believes him to be.

He searches for anger, the one and only motivation he can count on. He recalls why he began skating—no, why he began skating professionally, as an athlete with ties to several big companies in Russia. He skates to support his family—no, not his mother, not his dead father—to support Grandpa, who never showed him nothing but compassion, love, and kindness. He skates to support himself, to spite the kids at school who called him names because he grows his hair—who jeers at him, calls him fairy for all the wrong reasons, who mocks him. Yuri won his first junior championship because he wanted to shut them up with a gold medal.

Otabek is the only person who sees him and doesn’t think of a fairy. He calls him a soldier. Yuri remembers how scared he had been when he learned of Otabek’s injury, how angry he had been at JJ, at Otabek for not being careful enough. He remembers the weight of Otabek’s hand in his as he listens to whirring of the air conditioner in a hospital in Boston, miles away from Almaty, from St. Petersburg, and hopes his skating would be enough for Otabek.

His mind goes blank in the middle of it, as it usually does when he truly lives the music, his mind struggling to catch up with his body, realizing he’s done a quad salchow before his mind registers it. He feels strangely… serene, like the edge of the sand that never kisses the waves, though it always comes close.

Oh. That’s it.

The place between rage and serenity, he’s found it.

The crowd roars as he strikes his final pose. Flowers rain down on him like snow, tiny children in tiny skates rushing to pick it up. “Oh, splendid! Truly splendid! It’s intense, it’s theatrical, it’s entirely, and wholly, Yuri Plisetsky! The dance of death, the resurgence of Russia’s new legend and prodigy, Yuri Plisetsky!” the commentators are saying, but Yuri barely pays attention to them. He half-skates, half-runs to Yuuri, waiting with open arms.

“I’m so,” Yuuri shakes his head. “So, so proud of you.”

“Wait until I break your record,” he says.

Yuri notices a pair of brown eyes watching him, and immediately hug-attacks him. “Asshole!” he laughs. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I missed you so much.”

“I do too,” Otabek says. “Yura, you were amazing.”

“You try and beat me now,” Yuri says. He releases the older boy. “Listen, Otabek—“

“Yurio!” Yuuri calls. “Kiss and Cry, now!”

Yuri grimaces. “Shit, gotta go. You’re skating after this, right?” At Otabek’s nod, Yuri gives him another hug. “Davai.” Then he all but runs to the Kiss and Cry, where Yuuri is already waiting, looking expectantly up at the scoring board. He gets 103.8; it’s not high enough to break any records, but it separates him and Chris, who held the first position prior to him, by three solid points. Yuuri hugs him again—wow, he hugs a lot of people today—and really, it’s like Yuuri is prouder at the score than Yuri himself.

It isn’t until he’s sat down to watch Otabek that he realizes Otabek called him Yura.

-

//

Otabek wins silver, losing by five points to Yuri’s gold, and looks up at him proudly at the podium. Yuri is taller than him now, and taller still when he’s one step elevated at the podium. He’s wearing his free skate costume, in contrast to the austere theme of his short program, fiery red and gold, the phoenix rising from the ashes, alive again. His free skate is enthralling; that, at least, never changes since the first time he met Yuri. He remains a delight to watch, all elegance and sharp lines. He’s going to goad the champion to pay for him when they go out for Korean BBQ after the banquet; it’s his right, as the birthday boy, and Yuri’s responsibility as a winner.

His EX gala is Ambush from Ten Sides, depicting the perseverance of Kazakh warriors in times of war, and he’s dressed in a long-sleeved velvet blue jacket with gold lining stitched on the back. He loves EX galas as it gives him the freedom to improvise, to enjoy skating as a performance art that he’s fallen in love with as a child without the pressure of the competition.

He passes Yuri on the side, sporting a casual look with black trousers and sky-blue button-up shirt, looking younger than a seventeen years old. “Looking good,” Otabek greets. “We haven’t had a moment to catch up.”

“Still on for that BBQ, right?” Yuri asks.

“Of course,” Otabek says, embarrassed at how quickly he responds.

“Good, I hope you’re hungry because Yuuri is paying,” he says, taking off his blade guards. He claps Otabek on one shoulder. “Also, I hope you enjoy my EX gala.”

Otabek is going to tell him that he would like what Yuri puts out anyway, but Yuri is already gliding on the ice, the lights dimmed.

“Presenting, gold medalist, representing Russia, Yuri Plisetsky!”

The ice bathed in magenta. Yuri trains his hopeful eyes to the domed ceiling, and the music starts.

Otabek freezes.

The happy, poppy beats are a contrast to Otabek’s intense gala music. Yuri starts out with little laps around the rink before launching himself into a sequence of energetic, fancy steps. It isn’t packed with technical difficulties like his programs always had been, it’s less about dramatics and competitions and more about having fun, and it bleeds onto the ice, the positive vibes that Yuri is bringing. Otabek can’t help but laugh, covering his face in his hands as he hears his own voice singing—you only live once—in time with Yuri’s jumps.

“Otabek,” Leo, the bronze medalist, elbows him. “Isn’t this your song?”

Otabek parts his fingers. Yuri is still moving, electric and mesmerizing, and he’s using his own music. He remembers mixing at two am, worrying himself to death over whether Yuri will like it, calling Leo for R&B and electro-pop reference. He feels warm all over. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.”

“Yuri must love it so much,” Leo says.

When the song ends, Otabek’s pretty sure he claps the loudest.

Yuri skates off the ice, and as soon as his blades hit the ground, Otabek hugs the shit out of him.

“I take it you love it, then?” Yuri laughs. Otabek can’t fully envelop him in his arms like he wants to. While they’re away from each other, Yuri’s grown about seven inches taller and his shoulders are broader.

“You are unbelievable,” Otabek declares.

Yuri pushes himself off him. “No, seriously, I’d die if you hate it, because it’s meant to be your birthday present,” he says sheepishly. “I just—you know, part of the reason why we’re friends is because of my skating, so I figured—why not try to choreograph a program for you? It’s my first time ever choreographing anything, so it sucks, even though Katsudon helps, but I’m always open to suggestions.” Yuri shyly tucks his hair behind his ears. “So… what do you think?”

“I think,” Otabek says, “that I could—“

_Kiss you right now._

“You could…?” Yuri prompts.

Fuck. Otabek is fucked.

“I could cry,” Otabek saves his ass.

“A good cry, right?”

Like it could ever be anything else.

Otabek squeezes Yuri’s hand. It’s still as warm as he remembers. “A good fucking cry.”

-

Leo claims that Yuna’s has the best Korean BBQ in all of America. He’s taken Otabek here for a total of twelve times during his time sharing a rink with Leo when he was fifteen. This is a rather historical place for the both of them. This is where Leo had come out to him and confessed his quiet rebellion. He hates timers, thinks that love should not be controlled. The year after he meets Guang Hong, he drags Otabek after a competition and told him he’s in love.

Otabek is a traditionalist, born in a family of traditionalists. It has come as a surprise, but the look in Leo’s eyes melts his resolve and he decides he would support Leo, no matter what. There’s been many selfies posted on Instagram of Guang Hong and Leo eating out here at Yuna’s since then. Otabek wishes that everything would work out in their favor, in the end.

Tonight, Leo’s booked the best table in the restaurant for a modest celebration of Otabek’s birthday.

Yuri is sitting next to Otabek, flipping meat on the stove, hair pulled up in a messy bun. Yuuri is with them, conversing with an excited Leo, nodding and ahhing at the right parts of the story. He takes pictures to send to Victor, and also Phichit, who insists on him documenting his food.

“Oh, look,” Yuri nudges him. “Snapchat has a spooky filter!”

Otabek knows enough of Snapchat from Sabina’s adventurous escapades, and quickly removes himself from the line of the camera. Yuri’s mouth curves downwards. “No fun,” he says.

His screen lights up with Yakov’s name.

“Whoops, sorry, gotta take this,” Yuri presses the button. “Hey, Yakov! Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

Otabek puts more meat on the stove, moving the cooked ones to a clean plate. The sizzling sound is definitely one of the most satisfying sounds he’s ever heard in his life. His mouth waters just thinking about it.

“—is he—“

Otabek’s head snaps up. Leo’s and Yuuri’s chatter has died down, and they’re both looking at Yuri with a twin expression: worry. Yuri’s eyes are shining with unshed tears, and Otabek feels dread in his chest. Yuri mumbles a few words that Otabek can’t catch, nodding along, and when he finally puts his phone down, Otabek’s appetite has gone.

“It’s, um,” Yuri croaks out. “It’s my grandpa.”


End file.
